yet another fly shot.

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

considered cropping it as it shows the pin it was mounted on (hasten to add, I used a dead fly, it was in the windowsill) however that'd cut the leg off.

PP was exposure compensation (for some reason Rawtherapee overexposes the image, despite rendering thumbnails correctly) and cloning an errant hair out

Olympus E300
Zukio 50mm f1.8 on macro bellows
ISO 100
Shutter 1/250th
Aperture 16
flash and constant lighting.

 

[chubasco]

Gawd, Ben, you still here? I would've thought they'd kick you out long ago. j/k

"Vlad the Impaler" version of insect macros is a tough call, Ben. It does ensure no movement on
the subject's part, though. I find the background as lifeless as the subject, my biggest problem
with this. The left eye is in good focus, 'course there are trade-offs to using bellows with its attendant
narrow DOF. Experiment with better lighting and BG.

 

[chubasco]

One other thing, did you meter this with a handheld or incamera? If you're using bellows, I wouldn't use the incamera meter unless that
info is given in the VF before taking the picture. I'm thinking the exposure would've been better at either f8 same shutter speed or, 1/125sec same fstop. The pic is underexposed. I found this out recently when I got my first Mamiyaflex 6x6 film camera and was reading
how to do macros with it. The farther the lens is removed from the film plane (or sensor in the E300's case) you have to decrease either
fstop or shutter speed or both (if both by 1/4 each) or half if just one. I now have two Mamiyaflexes and they are nice performers:

to show the bellows

If possible I would compare readings of a good handheld meter and the incamera one to see if there's a disparity.
Of course, increasing the light will help matters considerably.

 

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

no not kicked off, been busy with a university course, which has resulted in me being completely knackered and rarely taking photos....

exposure I did by eye, TBH, I tend to ignore what the camera says the exposure is, I go by what the test shot gives me, and adjust up/down as needed. the image on the camera is a bit brighter, looking at it again I adjusted it as a result of trying to get some colour back (looks a bit grey in the original)

I was only using the small flash (vivitar 45) and a small halogen to help me focus. biggest problem I'm finding is that with the bellows allowing me to move the lens so close to the subject (think there was something like 10mm or less in this one) is its rather difficult to get an even exposure,

ideally I want a ring flash, but they're nice and expensive... and I dont like expensive (that said, I'm wanting to upgrade the camera. quite fancy the E30. maybe its stupid given how poor the lens range is, and how limited the specs, but I like the feel of the Olympus (buttons on the E30 are fairly similar to E300) whereas all the Nikon/Canon cameras I've played with just dont feel "right")

just for reference, this is the lens setup.

note the adapters everywhere..... its a Nikon mount bellows, with OM lens.....

I can mount it direct to the camera, however its a pig to get off then, so I use the ring adapters from my extension tubes (note the tubes themselves are in shot there, holding the flower........)

 

[chubasco]

Cool setup, Ben. I think I'd save my milk money for a decent macro lens, though, like the Nikon micro-Nikkor 55 (either the f2.8 or f3.5 are excellent manual focus lenses). That would allow you a little breathing room from the subject for lighting purposes. If you can find
a way to light the subject more with a dark background would yield favorable results. Going wider aperture is just way to narrow DOF
with these bellows. Here's one of my macro attempts from the above camera, I could actually fill the frame with 1/2 of
one of these leaves, from the first roll:

TMAX 400, dev'd in HC-110B, Epson scan