Everybody loves a ZT

oregonknifenerd

oregonknifenerd

Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Messages
1,346
0560salamander.jpg
 
Was going to go off on a rant but it's a pretty cool pic. ( not everyone digs em, like me)
 
Really nice photo.... Alot of nice elements to it. I'd love to hear how the scene presented itself.
I fart with photography myself and I know how hard it can be to get a good shot.
 
If you are a Canon fan Bob Atkins is your guy. Most of what either of them post is relevant to any SLR and general photography. And now we're off on a tangent and running!
 
^^^
I'm using a Panasonic Lumix G1 (micro 4:3), 14-45mm Leica lens. Nice camera, now I just gotta get some more lenses....the 14-45 is limited to mainly portraits. I'd really like to do more in Macro like I'm assuming you did above.

Tangent perpetuated...... :-)
 
gusbubba said:
I'd really like to do more in Macro like I'm assuming you did above.
Click to expand...
This is just a closeup shot, not macro.

The Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 I shot this with only has a magnification factor of .17x it looks like and with
a 25mm extension tube (brings your lens focus point way from the sensor increasing the size projected on to the sensor)
it has a mag. factor of a maximum of .51x. The 17-55 is not a good macro lens. This just happened to be the lens I had
on the camera and I didn't want to swap lenses while trying to keep track of him. He also wasn't sitting still so trying to do
a proper macro shot on a tripod and focus stacking would have been impossible.

I don't own any true macro lenses with a 1:1 or greater ratio. I'd like to eventually pickup a 60mm (called a prime as it has
a set focal point and can't zoom) f/2.8 that is a 1:1 so you could have a penny pretty much fill the frame and get all the surface detail.
With the 25mm tube it is a 1.61x mag. factor, much much different than the .51x! If Abe had individual beard hairs on your penny, you'd see them!

My camera has a 1.6x crop factor, so a 100mm lens is equivalent to a 160mm lens on a 35mm camera. This works well for me because it gives me
extra reach out of longer lenses. The shot below was shot at 400mm, which is 640mm equivalent for a full frame camera. The 600mm Canon is over $9,000
It's an f/4, you get more than just range for the $, but I get a lot out of my $1,700 lens. This coyote was probably 100 yards away and at the Ridgefield WA refuge you can't leave your vehicle so I braced on the window sill to steady at that long length with the heavy lens and scrunched down to see through the view finder.

6676613201_6de1ba7009.jpg


Your best bet though is to learn Photoshop well for post processing and find interesting subjects to shoot. The image I've made the most money off of was cleaned up in Photoshop but shot with an old $200 Canon A95 point and shoot!
 
I agree with you about Photoshop....post-processing is everything in the digital age. I've managed to get decent results from pics taken on a crappy cell phone camera (given sufficient lighting, of course).
I'm just not big on cropping to try to "magnify" an image...I never get quite the amount of detail I want.
Maybe with more experience, I'll get satisfactory results until I chase down the lens I want.
(btw, I recognize the coyote from your flickr page....great pic!).
 
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