I’ve always loved shooting pictures of insects, spiders, close up things that we can’t see with the unaided eye. Revealing details that are hidden by the sheer diminutive size of the subjects. I’ve got close-up lenses, macro lenses, extension tubes, you name it. I chase bugs with a virtual arsenal of optics and accoutrements. 

When you pursue images this way, you frequently get nothing usable. The depth-of-field is measured in millimeters, working distance in centimeters, and the slightest breeze can make shooting an image frustrating beyond all belief. Take this lady for example - 

She was about 1/4” from toe-tip-to-toe-tip. She’d spun a web between a couple of the fronds on our shrubbery (no Monty Python comments). There was only the slightest breeze, but I shot fifteen or twenty images to get *this one image*. Notice that the very top of her abdomen is blurry? That’s because she’s thicker than the depth of field at this magnification (around 1:2).

Or a couple of days ago - I slipped out the back door at lunch time and went looking for this bug that I’d seen on the wife’s Hydrangeas a few days before. Bright orange abdomen, shiny black legs and body. Moved very, very slowly, but also very shy. Found one after about ten minutes of hunting:

Tried to coax him out from under the leaf, with little luck. Took twenty or so images to get this one with the ‘face’ intact. Turns out it was an assassin bug nymph, just as I’d suspected. Twenty shots to get one that seemed worthwhile. Look at that fang! 

Some shots are easy, though. You point your camera at ‘em, and voila, you get an image you like:

This flower is maybe 1/4” across. I’m not sure what it goes to, but I thought it looked pretty cool all protruding from the green. It was standing in the middle of our yard.

Then, sometimes, you just get lucky. I’m selling off a bunch of lenses I don’t use, and one of them is an old Tamron 80-210 f4 that’s never been a stellar performer; just ok, and I’ve got much better glass now, so it goes on the chopping block. Anyway, I was testing it - stuck it on the K-5 and took it out in the back yard to make sure it worked before I sold it to some unsuspecting eekbay shopper - and while I’m shooting random items designed to illustrate the lens’ performance, I got lucky. Normally, I’d have my D-Xenon Macro lens, but this time, the butterfly appeared and posed for me, and all I had was a crappy old zoom:

Like I said… Sometimes, you get lucky. :D

So I read on a forum about the Russian Helios lenses and how they were copies of Zeiss designs - the 44 being a copy of the Zeiss Biotar. Being a recovering Zeiss junkie, I had to try it out… like optical methadone. Plus, in 35mm film, my favorite lens was the venerable 85mm f1.8; this 58mm f2 would be almost exactly 86mm on the APS-c “Crop Sensor” with 1.5 crop factor.

The Helios 44M is an m42 - Pentax screw mount - lens, which means it needs an adapter. After various adjustments and finickiness, I finally got it adapted properly. 

This was one of the first images I got from it. Crisp, interesting bokeh… I like it. Then:

Another crisp, exceptionally sharp image. Its Zeiss heritage definitely shows. The coatings are vintage, so it’s prone to flare, but sharp, sharp… And interesting:

And the cost? $27.00, delivered. Sometimes you don’t get what you pay for. :D

Lenses I love, part two…

This is from my Pentax DA* 50-135 f2.8. It was fairly expensive, as lenses go, but not all that expensive as f2.8 zooms go. Of all the zoom lenses I’ve ever owned (in over 30 years of photography), this is the best, with a bullet.

This lens has contrast, saturation, and resolution in spades. Images from it have that… almost “3-D” appearance that’s so sought after (for good reason). That’s partly a function of depth of field, but also partly a function of local contrast. Show me a lens with good saturation and high local contrast (that is, high contrast where there are edges in the image) and I’ll show you a lens *someone* loves.  

BellaDonna adopted us some 12 years ago. I was sitting on the front steps and this little calico creature walked straight down the middle of the sidewalk; she stopped and turned and walked straight up the middle of our sidewalk, up the steps next to me, with a cheery “Mew!” as though she were saying, “Ok, I’m home now.” She was, too.

I love these little flowers. They’re always all over the yard, and they’re just as much pretty as you can get into 3/4 of an inch. Shot some macros with the K-5; my first of the year, first with the camera. The Schneider D-Xenon 100mm f2.8 (It’s a re-badged Pentax made for Samsung’s KAF2 mount cameras that were re-badged Pentax machines) is scary sharp, and the colors are saturated and rich. The bokeh is smooth but not remarkably so. The last six or eight images in my flickr photostream really highlight why I love Pentax glass so much. 

I know the lowly robin is unremarkable in the midwest, but this fellow was posing so regally I had to take his portrait. Using a Pentax FA 100-300 f5.6 that my cousin was kind enough to loan to me, I was in the backyard testing it. I love my 50-135 DA* - in fact, it’s one of the sharpest, most contrasty zooms I’ve ever used - but it just doesn’t reach out quite far enough. This was one of the images that made me a believer. At 100% enlargement, you can see the tiny hairlike feathers around the base of his beak. 

Another picture of this beautiful bird. Bigma, K-5, Monopod. He was posing for me. When he moved it was so fast it looked like the tape skipped. One minute facing me, one minute looking away. 

This uses the new service from Microsoft called “zoom.it”, an image display and zooming site. This allows me to upload the full resolution image and you can look at it, zoom in and out, without downloading a 40mb file. Lemme know what you think!

I took out the K20D with just the 35mm f2 on it. I remember how much I liked shooting with my old Minolta SRT101 - and the interesting pictures I shot - and all I had was the 50mm f1.4.  This image is one of the results of my desire to recapture that feeling.