Macro-photography

For inspiration [or just for for admiration] : 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snowflake-structure-still-mystifies-physicists/

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 20/11/2021 08:55:47

Hi MichaelG, fascinating! Hard to believe that no two are alike out of the trillions+ of snowflakes that are formed over the years, but I guess it is possible from reading your link.

Regards Nick.

Hi, been awhile since I last made a stereoscopic photo, so I though I'd give it ago using my Canon IXUS 170 compact camera. It soon became aware that the subject that I've photographed wasn't easy to achieve, as lighting was a problem to get right, it was either too bright and washed most of the detail away, or I got good detail but a lot of darkness making other parts hard to see. My solution was to cobble together an angle pose lamp with a daylight bulb in it and a lamp dimmer, but it still took a lot of trials to get what I considered a satisfactory result, the bronze look is the result of the dimmed light bulb. the 3D effect is a little shallow but the main subject does stand out from the background and does work well using a stereoscope.

Photo numbered 1 is for parallel view and 2 is for cross view.

The bearing is from the HSA (head stick assembly) of an old hard drive, not that I was measuring it particularly, it was just that it was small and easy to mount into position and was to hand.

Regards Nick.

P.S. if anyone wants the photos without the grey bar in the middle, just say and I'll do them.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 30/12/2021 23:10:09

Nice job, Nick

… I can free-view the parallel pair quite easily

MichaelG.

Hi MichaelG, thanks, it was a challenge and I thought of changing the subject, but I don't like such things beating me, although I nearly gave up.

Regards Nick.

Nice snowflake photos. Scientific American should have done more research, though, as there is a snowflake expert who can design them in the lab, to order. And make two alike. See video below. "Still mystifies" is the wrong phrase for the title. "Still amazes" is more appropriate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao2Jfm35XeE

That's a great video, thanks for the link

I was going to add this to the What I Did In The Workshop thread, but having taken a photo, I'm not exactly proud of the workmanship.

I picked up a Moore and Wright electronic "dial" indicator as a good deal off eBay, but it came without a tip.
I had some 4.5mm stainless kicking about, but it's horrible stuff to machine.
The thread is 2.5mm with an 1/8" ball bearing pressed into a 3mm hole in the end, and then rounded over to retain the ball.
I could see the knurling was dodgy, but it was getting late, so I carried on anyway.



Olympus E-M1 Mk2, 60mm macro, MC-2.0 teleconverter + 2 x 10mm extension tubes
15 raw shots, stacked in camera, to give this as a jpg, with no further enhancement or cropping.
At its closest focus distance, the threaded part just about filled the frame.

Bill

Hi, good shot Bill if nothing else, but the tip looks as it will work. Never mind the quality, it's a good item to photo up close.

Regards Nick.

Hi, the stereo pair shown below are not really macro photos, the pair was taken with my Conon 400D and 40D, each with an EF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 lens and were mounted in the portrait position with their base facing each other on a bracket that I've made for this purpose.

The bracket is yet to be finished, as at the moment each of the L sections that hold the cameras have just a bolt with a standard nut, holding them in place, which having to use two spanners for adjusting each camera position, makes it little long winded and difficult, but I wanted to try the concept out before proceeding any further in case it didn't work satisfactory enough. Have two different cameras also made things a little challenging as some of the settings differ in their execution and after some trial and error, plus the colour tones in each of the two photos is also different, but I believe I've produced a satisfactory stereo pair. The top one is for parallel viewing and the bottom one for cross viewing.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 24/04/2022 19:59:02

Hi Nick,

A great idea and setup.

Just one problem. As a 'cross-eye' viewer, and unless my eyes deceive me, both pairs are identical.

I switched the lower pair (L to R) in Photoshop and (for me) they looked 3D.

I could be wrong.

Sam

Back again Nick.

This was the (L to R) switch I did. Hope you don't mind my leaping in here.

Sam

Hi Sam, the two photos are different, but not by a lot. To me viewing the parallel one, the chairs and table stand out well and in cross view they look a bit mixed up from front to back, just as nearly all cross view ones do. As this is still in a trial stage and the two cameras are different models, I haven't expected them to be perfect and I probably need to turn them slightly more to each other, but I have bought another Canon 400D camera off ebay which should arrive later this coming week and once I get so I only need to use one spanner for adjustments, it should be easier to set each camera up.

Regards Nick.

Hi Sam, I have no problem with you leaping in and I have to apologize, as I have submitted two parallel views in my post above and I should have posted this cross view one. Guess I hit the wrong photo the second time.

Regards Nick.

Hi Nick,

Sorry if I appeared picky, I didn't mean to be.

I certainly look forward to your next steps with identical cameras and lenses.

Then after that ... dare I say ... synchronised shutters?

Your a man after my own heart.

Cheers,

Sam

Thanks Nick, you've made an old man happy.

By the way, I tried to balance the pairs for colour and contrast in Photoshop (CS3), but got myself hopelessly lost.

"Could try better!" comes to mind.

Cheers,

Sam

Hi Sam, you were not being picky, it was my mistake that I didn't notice. Both shutters were on self timers and pressed at the same time and I couldn't distinguish any lag between the count down beeps or one or the other cameras shutters starting and stopping. I tried balancing the colours in a previous shot or two, but they just wouldn't work.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 24/04/2022 21:42:03

I really battle to do parallel view - cross is no problem - takes 1/2sec with almost any set of photos. But Parallel....I find the closest I manage is by making two 2cm holes in an A4 sheet of cardboard, spaced my eyes apart, held at my nose and view the two photos through the holes, really close up - say 10cm from the screen - its all blurry then, but easy to keep eye sightline straight. Then I move my head back and try to keep 'blurry', moving till the images start to focus. There are moments when suddenly the 3D pops through and then I loose it and my focus goes crosswise...My eyes just want to do the cross thing..

Spot on for me too Joseph.

‘Locking in’ (cross-eyed) is almost instantaneous and focusing is not a problem.

I’d say (from my perspective), it comes from viewing those “Spot the difference” cartoons and seeing the differences flicker as (I presume) the brain switches between left and right.

If one frame is above the other, it's necessary to turn the pair through 90 degrees.

That kind of gives the game away.

Sam

PS - There is a down side for some. Feeling nauseous. 

Edited By Sam Stones on 24/04/2022 22:47:01

I recently built a stereo camera based on Raspberry-Pi. Like this:

Being home-built it's susceptible to modification and I keep wondering whether it would be possible to come up with a macro version. Trouble is that, assuming the generally accepted 1/30 of the object distance for the lens separation would give a figure of only 0.2" for a 6" object distance and quite obviously couldn't be done directly.

I've mentally toyed with the idea of pointing the lenses towards each other and using some kind of prism or mirror arrangement between them that could effectively get me a smaller separation but it doesn't really look promising.

I'm no optics expert though, so if there's something I'm missing ......