Focus on the Little Things

I bought a set of screw on macro filters to play with. I was buying an intervalometer to enter in to time lapse photography and adding the filters to the order made it qualify for free shipping, for cheaper than the shipping cost. At twelve dollars, this four piece set made by AGFA is a steal! They simply screw on a lens like a UV, or polarizing filter and allow You to get physically closer to what You are trying to shoot. Not without a hitch though. This 77mm set has been mated to my Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 OS to reduce the minimum focus distance from three and a half feet, down to eight to twelve inches with the +4. The extreme curve of the +4 and +10 filters, dramatically reduces the amount of light intake. So You are pretty much required to shoot in full sun light. On My first try, I used a portable L.E.D. to augment the fading evening light. It worked okay, not great though.

Over the weekend, I was musing pretty hard on My friends garden, so I popped on the +4 filter and had a go in full sun light. The filter reduced the depth of field to nearly nothing. I had to run very tight apertures to get a range of one inch into focus. Using shutter speeds of 125ths, to 400ths of a second, with apertures from 16-22 and My ISO at 400 and 800 in broad daylight was very odd. It did yield some rewards, at a better ratio than the first time, but still only 1 in every 15 shots was acceptable. Half of those were still not quite sharp, but I think I am getting the hang of using these things. Who would have thought that a $12 set of filters could turn a telephoto lens into decent macro shooting optics. It is not as good as buying a 200mm macro lens, but at one, or two percent of the price, WOW. None of the images in this post have been cropped…

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August 4, 2014 | Categories: Photography | Tags: +10, +2, +4, 1, 200mm, 70mm, 77mm, agfa, aperture, beautiful, bee, bees, beetle, beetles, best option, bloom, blooming, blooms, blossom, blossoming, blossoms, bought on amazon, bumble, bumblebee, burrowing, center, cheap, cheap option, close, close-up, collection, color, colorful, coloring, colors, contrast, core, daylight, eating, exoskeleton, filter, filters, flower, flowering, flowers, fur, furry, fuzzy, garden, gardens, grazing, image, images, img, instect, iridescent, japanese, kit, lens, lenses, light, lighting, lights, macro, middle america, midwest, minnesota, mn, nectar, nice, no coating, no cropping, no multi-coating, oppo moto, oppomoto, petal, petals, photo, photograph, photographic, photos, pic, pics, picture, pictures, pink, pistil, pistils, plant, plants, pollen, pollenating, pretty, range, salmon, see, sharp, shell, shoot, shooting, shot, shots, shutter, sigma 70-200mm, speed, sun, sunlight, twin cities, view, wing, wings, without cropping, yard, yellow, zinnia, zoom | Leave a comment