Close-ups with 10D + 400mm + 1.4 TC + 500D (9 photos, BIG)

[Scottes]

Well, I had finished my Kraft Dinner and had nothing better to do, so I decided to try out my camera in [very early] preparation for closeups of flowers, dragonflies, and butterflies.

The setup: My small desktop studio, complete with 2 150-watt halogen lights off screen, my flourescent-light panel diffuser, a couple pieces of black posterboard, a statue of a griffin and a ruler. The statue is 9" to the tip of the ear.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/400_setup.jpg


Other than the setup image, all images are exposure +.5, no cropping, resized, sharpened with FM Intellisharpen level 4. I tried to set the camera at the closest possible focusing distance every time, but I might have been off a smidge or two.

First image, 10D with 100-400 L IS at 400mm, f/38. The Griffin's right eye was 57" from the front of the lens, so approximately 70-1/4" from the sensor.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/400_f38.jpg

And a reasonable usage of f/5.6

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/400_f5-6.jpg


Next I threw on the 1.4 TC at f/54. The TC doesn't change the focusing distance. This is getting a bit better here - the eye is 3/8" in diameter.

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/400_14tc_f54.jpg

And a more reasonable usage at f8

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/400_14tc_f8.jpg


Next I removed the 1.4 TC, but put the 500D Close Up Lens on. This is Holy Cow time - the focus distance changes dramatically. The eye is now a mere 14-1/2" from the front of the lens, approximately 28" from the sensor.

I've heard that the 500D isn't supposed to change the light at all, but I'm not so sure about that. At 400mm f/8 the shutter was 1/3 sec. Adding the 500D - but moving much closer - the shutter was 1.0 sec for f/8. Otherwise nothing changed. Granted, moving closer DID change the light...

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/400_500d_f38.jpg

And a more reasonable f/8

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/400_500d_f8.jpg


Now for the max - 400mm + 1.4 + 500D. (Remember that the eye is 3/8" diameter, 14-1/2" from the front of the lens, and this has not been cropped.)

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/400_14tc_500d_f54.jpg

And a more reasonable f8:

http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/400_14tc_500d_f8.jpg


Well I can't wait for the butterflies to come out.

I hope you enjoyed this.

[Tom W]

WOW!!

Impressive comparison - thanks!

[cgratti]

Ok, I am a newbie..

And a confused one at that..... Can anyone explain what this statement means?? "Other than the setup image, all images are exposure +.5"

What does the +.5 mean? I am assuming it is a camera setting, if someone would be so kind to briefly explain this I would be grateful...


--G

[mr_clean001]

Excellent comparison...thanks for the info.

[robertwgross]

Can anyone explain what this statement means?? "Other than the setup image, all images are exposure +.5"


It means to take the automatic meter exposure, and then do +.5 stop of exposure compensation.

If the subject was a completely different color, like medium brown, then the photographer might have used the meter exposure and -.5 stop of EC.

---Bob Gross---

[IanD]

Scottes,
Thanks for posting the images. Very interesting.
Looks like you did not have your lens on backwards :lol:

[cgratti]

Can anyone explain what this statement means?? "Other than the setup image, all images are exposure +.5"


It means to take the automatic meter exposure, and then do +.5 stop of exposure compensation.

If the subject was a completely different color, like medium brown, then the photographer might have used the meter exposure and -.5 stop of EC.

---Bob Gross---

So since the subject is a lighter shade the +.5 is lowering the f-stop a half of stop? If the subject would have been dark
brown a -.5 would open the apature a half stop to compensate for the dark subject??? Am I close??

[Scottes]

So since the subject is a lighter shade the +.5 is lowering the f-stop a half of stop? If the subject would have been dark
brown a -.5 would open the apature a half stop to compensate for the dark subject??? Am I close??

The other way around.

The meter thinks that everything is a medium shade of gray. My griffin reflects more light than a medium gray griffin would, so the meter thinks that it was too bright. So the meter drops down 1/2 stop in order to properly expose a medium gray griffin.

Since I know that my griffin was reflecting more light than actually existed, I expected the meter to do this. So I increased the exposure by 1/2 stop. In a way, I was telling the camera that my griffin is 1/2 stop brighter than a medium gray griffin.

Given a dark brown griffin, this would work the other way. The camera would think "Hey, that's not bright enough if it were medium gray!" So the camera would add 1/2 stop of exposure. I would then tell the camera to reduce exposure by 1/2 stop, thus telling the camera that my dark brown griffin is 1/2 stop darker than a medium gray griffin.

Hope that helps. If not, let us know.

[LiquidMantis]

Since I know that my griffin was reflecting more light than actually existed

Better watch out, if the oil companies find out you're sitting on a free energy source they're going to come after you :shock:

[robertwgross]

So since the subject is a lighter shade the +.5 is lowering the f-stop a half of stop? If the subject would have been dark
brown a -.5 would open the apature a half stop to compensate for the dark subject??? Am I close??

Read up on the Zone System.

We can't do it justice here, but it is widely accepted by many photographers.

---Bob Gross---

[Scottes]

Since I know that my griffin was reflecting more light than actually existed

Better watch out, if the oil companies find out you're sitting on a free energy source they're going to come after you :shock:

ROFL - I musta re-read this 3 times and it seemed correct, so I posted. Hell, I knew what I was talking about.


So a correction to the Infinite Photon portion of my diatribe:

Since I know that my griffin was reflecting more light than a medium gray griffin...

You know, that makes a hell of a lot more sense.

[dpanicc1]

Scottes, excellent test and great explanation.

I might add (to help newbies) that that when all of this exposure intervention is going on--and it has to--the meter reading is biased towards the active focus indicator. So if you let the camera pick the subject and the camera's active focus point is something other than what you've identified as the subject (and compensated exposure for) your exposure may be off in either direction.

[Scottes]

I might add (to help newbies) that that when all of this exposure intervention is going on--and it has to--the meter reading is biased towards the active focus indicator. So if you let the camera pick the subject and the camera's active focus point is something other than what you've identified as the subject (and compensated exposure for) your exposure may be off in either direction.

Great point, and it reminded me that I'm pretty sure that I was set to partial metering mode, so I was always concentrating on the center focus point and ignoring background, thus the meter was always seeing the griffin and nothing else.

This isn't really an issue for most of the pictures, but go back and look at the first ones where some black background is seen.

In partial metering, I was metering only his nose (approximately). The meter didn't care about anything else - it wanted the nose exposed correctly.

In evaluative mode the meter would be seeing the enter frame, griffin and black background, and averaging them. The meter would have attempted to correctly expose the entire scene as if it were uniformly medium gray. Evaluative mode would have changed the resulting exposure quite a bit.

Center weighted mode would have looked at the entire frame, averaged it, but would have given the center point a higher importance. It would have done it's best to correctly expose the griffin's nose, but would still have attempted to at least partially expose the black background.

[burkdog]

What does "a more reasonable f/8" and " f/5.6 mean"?

[Scottes]

What does "a more reasonable f/8" and " f/5.6 mean"?

The tests were done with thoughts of chasing dragonflies and butterflies and flowers.

Did you ever try to handhold at f54? Pretty unreasonable. Ever try to take a picture of a butterfly at f38? Pretty unreasonable to think it would stay still that long. Even a flower would move on a still day during a tripod shot lasting 4 or 6 seconds.

So the lower aperture setting are probably a bit more reasonable during normal working conditions, and show the very limited depths of field at these apertures.

[jim monroe]

Thanks for the post. It was very instructive.
Your extreme range of f values really brings home the depth of field connection. I am a new comer but last summer photographed exactly what you referred to dragonflies, butterflies, etc. The depth of field you got with the very large f values were great but like you say the darn butteflies won't cooperate by sitting still that long. (I can't wait to do some experimenting of my own this coming summer.)
Of course a lot of time you want to blur out the background so a small depth of field isn't a problem.
Again very instructive post and one of the reasons to daily log on to this forum.

[Scottes]

Your extreme range of f values really brings home the depth of field connection.

I actually took pictures in 1-stop aperture values just to see the effects of DoF. However I think the statue was too big to accurately see what DoF is needed for a butterfly. It does give you a hell of an idea though. But posting all of them...

Again very instructive post and one of the reasons to daily log on to this forum.

Thanks, and glad it helped. I actually found it extremely instructional, too.

And keep your eye out - I plan on re-doing this whole shebang, adding my 70-200 and a "real" macro lens. I plan on using a much smaller object of some kind, and listing all apertures. I'll post it on my web site though, in more manageable pages.