Other Macro Show us your macro rig

Ajophotog said:
Well I'm not sure this is Damage, here is my panny using onboard flash with a strip of plastic milk bottle to diffuse it and the raynox 202 on the front.


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Great shots mate..puts some of my macro shots taken with sophisticated gear to shame.. well done..
 
I was about to say ^^ that is HELLA impressive, and then you realise it came from a bridge cam & a bit of milk bottle, even better :)

I think if I try macro, it will be at the more ghetto end of the scale :)
 
Paul I love the way you have dug out the holes for the focus lamps :D
 
Wow, not only am i new to the forums, but i am now completely inspired! I was getting so despondent with all the magazines telling us that you need to spend £10 million quid on the latest gear! Thank you so much for the inspiration, i am off to the hardware shop this afternoon and who knows what i will come back with! (I think velcro is the top of my list.... !)
 
Don't forget to rescue milk bottle tops and cereal packets from the recycle bin :LOL:
 
Wonderful idea Alby!

Here's my gubbins.

Either a D3 or D200 with reverse 24 or 50mm with SB-800 mounted via off shoe cord, Cullmann ballhead and Manfrotto macro bracket.

It looks alot more complicated than it it is but no where near as interesting as Dogfish_magnet's D300 set up! :D

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Example shots:
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Example with the onboard flash which I usually diffuse with a piece of milk carton (y)
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Example shot taken with above set up:
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Here's my rather heavy set up :D

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D300, Nikkor 105mm Micro f2.8, optional Raynox DCR-250, SB800 as master, SB600 as slave.

Not quite a RC-101 but I already had the flashes!
 
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This is a really useful thread for me to see what you use to produce some of these amazing photos.

I love macro but I am very new to flash and still trying to get to grips with it. I have two questions:

1) I have a Metz 48 AF-1 and this has a built-in wide angle diffuser. Is this any good or should I consider adding an external diffuser.

2) I have a Canon 40D and use a 60mm macro lens. Is it possible/desirable to add a Raynox for some extra magnification?

I would appreciate any advice you can give.

Many thanks,

Jenny
 
Hi Jenny
1. you are trying to create a shot with flash that doesn't look like you have used flash by diffusing so if the lighting is harsh you need to diffuse more. Not ever used that flash I couldn't say how good the diffuser is. The softer the flash light the better your images will be.

2. yes you can add a raynox or a set of extension tubes for more magnification I do that myself sometimes. Extension tubes will give you a better dof then the raynox so I would go for them. On a 1:1 lens you would get 2:1 with the full set attached. What ever way you go I'm sure you will enjoy ;)
 
I have had a couple of "interesting" attempts at macro:

First:
Sony A300, M42 Mount, 2X Teleconverter, 2 extension tubes, Carl Zeiss 135mm lens, 10+ Macro Diopter. All pointed at a 5p coin with a very small dead fly sitting on it.
5p3.jpg


And here's the result (full frame):
5p1.jpg


I calculated it to give around 3.4:1 magnification.




I had another, much sillier idea involving the much smaller sensor of a P&S camera combined with an SLR lens:
sc7.jpg


And here is a full-frame shot of a ball point pen plus some salt grains:
sc2.jpg


It worked OK, considering the camera gave shockingly bad IQ even before I butchered it :LOL:

I have got a much more sofisticated P&S with a broken lens sitting around somewhere, so I may have another go at it :cool:
 
I used some blu-tac and extension tubes. Reversed mounted a nifty fifty onto the extension tubes and voilà!! Proper hardcore eh Dave??

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DOF was stupidly narrow. No flash either. (y)

My rig now is a Tokina 100mm and a sb900 remotely fired. Looking to get a raynox very soon!!
 
I'm using the following:

Canon EOS Body
Canon Ef 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens
Canon Speedlite 430EX Flash
Extension Tubes
An empty cereal box
Some double-sided sticky tape
The lid off a jam jar
and the Carburetor Gasket from a Ford Escort XR2 with sunroof and alloy wheels....

On a serious note... this is an inspiring thread. I've got to get myself a macro lens.
 
I see lots of you macro guys (like myself) like to do a bit of DIY for hoods/diffusers etc? well for materials to make them with check out this place www.hindleys.com they have a brilliant free catalogue packed with different sorts of plastic sheet etc and other goodies for making filters too! I have dealt with them for years so know they are very reliable (ex designer)
Cheers
Brian
 
This is my setup, it consists of a 40D with an broken 18-55 lens mounted in reverse with a plastic milk carton over my 580 EX 11 as a diffuser!

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It seems to work but with a minute DOF.




Click the photos for a larger rendition and much better detail!
 
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lightpainter said:
This is my setup, it consists of a 40D with an broken 18-55 lens mounted in reverse with a plastic milk carton over my 580 EX 11 as a diffuser!

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It seems to work but with a minute DOF.




Click the photos for a larger rendition and much better detail!
Click to expand...
Love the bottom shot! Oy who are you calling four eyes Lol very good shots I could never get tha hang of reversed lenses but you have certainly proved they work very well!
I have now got myself the Fuji S100fs + Raynox DCR-250 and Raynox DCR-150 great fun and didn't cost a fortune
Cheers
Brian
 
lightpainter said:
It seems to work but with a minute DOF.
Click to expand...

That is because the aperture is wide open by default. Canon uses a motor in the lens to control aperture, so if the aperture still works on that lens, you can try mounting it normally on the body, selecting an aperture that will give you more DOF (eg: f/10 or so) then pressing and holding the DOF preview button and removing the lens, keeping the DOF button pressed. The lens will now be stuck at f/10, or whatever you chose, so when you reverse mount you should get better DOF.
 
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Just won this on the Bay for £10.00 inc P&P I can't believe I got it so cheap :)

Watching out for the postman now and pacing :naughty: I hope that my macro rings will do for mounts at either end with a little tweaking and modification, if not then it looks like another £20.00 to buy them off of the BPM site. I have a 50mm sigma 1:2.8 DG macro D and hope this will get the same results as some of you guys get on here now. If not the reversing ring is on it's way on a slow boat from China and my AF Nikor 35-70 may be a better prospect. Either way I have a load of new options and hope to be posting some photos soon.

Would I be better off getting an Exakta lens and just converting the back to take my Nikon or should I stick with the plan to use the Sigma? I have tried googling but the info is a little thin on the ground.
 
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upload my photos later got my 105mm nikkor vr lens now :D
 
Seeing as people are sharing what they use, I thought you might like to see a complete waste of a ringflash - not quite a complete waste though as the ringflash was manual and even on it's lowest setting it was far too bright and kept blowing the pictures out.

So I took this apart:

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Got a few of these:

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Stuck them together with some hot melt metal glue:

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Then I got a load of these

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And stuck them into a box

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Continued .........
 
Which ended up looking like this

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Then I joined it all together so I ended up with this:

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In the end I had acheived the following:
I no longer had a ringflash
I had unloaded a good few quid on components
I now had an ringlight that wasn't bright enough, even with all the LED's turned on.

The idea was to have a light source that was completely controllable. The idea wasn't one of my best ones.
 
Erm, no, no idea how to power them either from batteries :( Individual heatsinks and a couple of PC fans on the back? Or liquid cooling, but that would be heavy :(
 
Not really do-able within a ringlight though. That's why I used the highest output LED's I could get that don't need a heatsink.
 
Right here is my new rig.....works brill!! 1:1 or 2.5:1 with extension!

Was going to get another for the other side, but this cast near enough no shadow anyways lol

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robbo what are you using to hold the flash in place can i see some photos of that please?

ben
 
355858 said:
robbo what are you using to hold the flash in place can i see some photos of that please?

ben
Click to expand...

I will post you some more pics tomorrow as im out at a family thing tonight and 12 hours shift tomorrow..

but I use a wedding bar sold by FITP under the advertisers section, 22pound I think or 20!

has a ball and socket joint which allows the flash to be moved near enough where ever you need it.

like I say will do some pics tomorrow or tonight if I can
 
Oh ok, awesome looks like a good setup :)
cheers for photos
 
I'm looking for some advice, I use a canon 50d with a sigma 105, what I am after is a decent ring flash, I looked at the canon one, but at nearly £400 its out of my budget at the moment. I looked at the sigma one, but after reading a few articles on-line it seems it will not work with my camera!?! any opinions gratefully received.
 
How about this? Canon 300D with 18-55 and a macro +4 lens on the front, on a bit of bracket, on a redsnapper...


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Pics with the D1x and handheld off camera flash :D

Results in the pics for fun section


Arthur
 
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