Thursday, April 24, 2014

Macronaut!

So I recently acquired a used 60mm f/2.8 macro lens from an internets friend as part of my plan to get the other blog back up and running. Just put it on the older Rebel body and snapped a couple of casual pics with the on-camera flash and everything right here at my desk, just to look at the up close focusing abilities, never having messed with a macro on a DSLR before*...

 Oh, my! I can see that I will have some fun with this lens...

 Yes, lots of fun indeed.

*I think the last time I used a macro lens on a single-lens reflex camera, it was to take a closeup of  a friend's Braves vs. Twins World Series ticket stubs while the outcome of that series was still in doubt...
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10 comments:

Windy Wilson said...

I have a little experience with macro lenses on film SLRs, but zero experience with DSLRs.
Are there any significant differences?

SPEMack said...

Like the subject matter. Grandpa had the above campaign ribbons plus the American Campaign Medal

jetfxr69 said...

Ahhh. 1987.

Unknown said...

Tam,
Nice! Enjoy the toy! Lighting become a bigger issue when you get close - so pay attention.

Windy - same same. Newer lenses are somewhat better than old lenses because they're designed to focus all colors into the same plain (the sensor) - old lenses didn't - since some (most) film (color anyway) had "thickness" yeah it wasn't much but when your taking wavelengths of light and about tiny tiny pixel sites on camera sensors - it matters.

Unless the lens has some notable curvature or vignetting you're unlikely to see the difference except in a full resolution A:B comparison. You can get crazy over this stuff (I would be a case in point).

Resolving power also matters when you start looking at 35mm full frame and DX (smaller) sensors.

There's some small tradeoff between focal length of macro's and resolution but my experience is that a longer than "normal" lens gives you more space between lens and subject, which makes lighting easer. So small even an complete lunatic like me ignores it :)

Diffraction is also an issue - especially with smaller than full frame sensors - You start to lose image sharpness earlier (say around f/8) and micro-contrast starts to fall. Again unless you're doing A:B comparisons at high resolutions - not a big deal - for web use you probably wouldn't notice even at f/16. It's more of an issue with macro because we tend to shoot subjects were the detail and micro-contrast ARE the subject (more or less)

With film, most of these things were non-issues. While 35mm film has a theoretical resolution of somewhere around 25 MP - the reality is that it was much lower. probably closer to 8-12MP. That's about where image quality of digital caught up to film - well little bitty film like 35mm anyway ;)

Old NFO said...

Very nice! And it looks like a good little lens! ;-)

Noah D said...

What did you think of MoH: Warfighter?

Anonymous said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgHW5QSLE3E


leaperman

Wayne said...

There was no doubt of the outcome of the Braves Twins series.

Gewehr98 said...

Tam, it appears your ribbon rack is in disarray! ;-)


I disagree with Richard - I've been having a blast buying older autofocus film (FX) lenses for my Nikon DSLRs. The build and heft of those lenses is amazing, as is the image quality compared to even my newest lightweight plastic VR zooms. If you didn't have the EXIF data, you probably wouldn't know. There's also a considerable price break - Tam knows where I'm finding these lenses.

Something one should do if their camera body allows is to do a microfocus adjustment for each lens. Even new lenses sometimes don't pair right with a given camera body, giving "soft" images when they should've been razor sharp.

Anonymous said...

I'm fairly certain at this point that SJWdom is a creation of the Koch brothers in an attempt to discredit the left.