The Sherman Tank (Photo Scrapbook)

[Sherman]

I'll post more later, but I'm headed off to work. The zoanthids were shot with the Canon 20D and 100mm macro.

Remind me what an extension tube does, please?

And your pictures were actually pretty good. The only thing I thought I saw was what appeared to be glass distortion, as if you weren't shooting directly perpendicular to the glass (both vertically and horizontally). Again, I always make sure the lens glass and tank glass are perfectly parallel with each other. There just seems to be some odd warping at the edges of the photos, but that may also be a function of the extension tube, which I'm not familiar with.

Nevermind, I found this: Every lens has a minimum focus distance as part of it's characteristics. An extension tube radically reduces that minimum focal distance. In fact it creates a focus zone, a fairly narrow focus zone, within which an object may be in focus

Try some of these same shots without the extension tube. 105mm is already a whole lot of telephoto, especially for a digital.

What are some of your camera settings for these shots? Have you ever indexed your lens (taken the same shot with every f-stop to find which one is sharpest)? I have found my 28-135mm is sharpest at f/7.1, while the 100mm macro is sharpest at f/9.

 

[Sherman]

I still don't have my own macro lens, so I borrowed a friend's Nikon 995 for a few new shots.

 

[Krish]

Unbelieveable Sherman! Great pictures!

 

[spongebob lover]

ohh dood just ... woouu !!
those are just some amazing shots dood

 

[Sherman]

A couple more. One is a super-close up of another, but I was impressed with the detail and color this little Nikon picked up for being a 4 year old 3.3MP.

 

[spongebob lover]

dood you are making me drool all over the place
could we see more !!!

 

[NaH2O]

OMG! How did I miss this thread??? Holy Cow! My keyboard went out on me from all the drool!!! I think I could see the zooxanthellae in those last shots! Awesome. Now I need to go back and read the camera and photography talk in the thread....I was totally focused on the eye candy!

 

[Sherman]

Thanks everyone, again, for the encouragement. I'll keep posting them as I take them. With only 38g to work with, though, it's hard to find new stuff to come up with.

 

[spongebob lover]

dood if you run out of corals, you can always come up here and take some pictures for me .
Linkster, where are you these days, how could you miss this one that's not you .

 

[Beeba]

I'm so impressed with your tank and your picture tanking skills. The zoos are so pretty.

 

[Sherman]

Thank you so much for the compliments. As for the corals' beauty... that's not my doing . Here's another, an echinophyllia.

 

[spongebob lover]

ohh gorgeous !!!
you are so good at it dood , now i'm trying to follow your steps when i'm taking a picture but i'll never be as good as you are dood that's for sure .

 

[ldrhawke]

Sherman,

Outstanding photo work.......I just cannot seem to beable to get that sharpness and clarity with my camera, my D70 with a 125mm Macro, no matter what I do or how many photos I take at different aperarture and EV settings and focal positions. I even bought a macro adjusting base for my tripod to do finite adjustments for focus.

None of my macro photos are really chrisp even shapening up wih Photoshop. The pictures I take are good, but do not have that macro sharpness like yours. I'm about ready to buy a used 995 on EBay to see if it can do any better. Did you have a macro adapter or macro light on the 995 when you took the shots? Do you have any suggestions on a good macro camera? From looking at you photos using different cameras, I have a feeling it can be as much the guy adjusting the camera as it is the camera. I'm determined to to make good macro photos :doubt:

 

[Sherman]

Your equipment should be beyond sufficient. The D70 and Nikon's glass is some serious stuff. It's not the equipment.

As for the 995 I used for the last couple of these shots, I used it as it shipped out of the box. No flash of any sort, no accessories. I just put it into macro mode (real cameras don't have this).

I need to ask/emphasize again... there are two things I'm looking at in your photos. 1: Shoot perpendicular to the glass, are you doing this? 2: Every lens has a minimum focus distance. That 125mm macro's minimum is probably more than 12" from the subject.

Don't forget to use the timer on corals, to assure your hand doesn't create any motion in the camera, etc.

 

[ldrhawke]

Your shooting perpendicular to the glass may be the problem. I wonder if part or much of the problem is being caused my the curved tank surface when macro shooting? I'll take some photos tonight making sure the camera is squared up to the tank surface and not at any angle. I do use the timer and a tripod.

Thanks again.

 

[ldrhawke]

Followed the experts directions.....Still does reach your quality.

 

[big t]

Maybe your iso is too high? I duno. Nice pic tho, I would be pretty happy with that. You should try taking pix w/ my old olympus, talk about frustrating. I have a Rebel XT on my christmas wish list, I have about a 1 in 10 chance I think

 

[ldrhawke]

Maybe your iso is too high? I duno. Nice pic tho, I would be pretty happy with that. You should try taking pix w/ my old olympus, talk about frustrating. I have a Rebel XT on my christmas wish list, I have about a 1 in 10 chance I think

I just reduced the ISO and took a few more to see if it makes a difference.

"You better not pout, you better not cry, you better watch out, I'm telling you why...........

 

[ldrhawke]

ISO reduced from 800 to 500.

 

[ldrhawke]

With extension tubes on lense