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Went for a wander with the extensions tubes and 70-300 Tamron Macro. Had all 3 extension tubes when I found the dragonfly so could not fit much in but I thought the wing pattern and the way teh wings attach was pretty amazing.

1/500s @ f/11 with SB800 fill in.

These are both great but that first one really catches me... Good detail, find macro stuff harder than it looks, I would have had trouble getting focus right with that little DOF, takes me heaps to get one right

you have done well finding a dragonfly which would let you photograph it.

I would love to get a set of tubes so I can get beyond 1:1
out of interest, how far were you from these 2 subjects??

Steve

mudder wrote:These are both great but that first one really catches me... Good detail, find macro stuff harder than it looks, I would have had trouble getting focus right with that little DOF, takes me heaps to get one right

Thanks Andrew, I would have like a bit more DOF to get the eyes in focus too. Trouble with dragonflys is they don't give you a lot of time to experiment.

avkomp wrote:you have done well finding a dragonfly which would let you photograph it.

I would love to get a set of tubes so I can get beyond 1:1
out of interest, how far were you from these 2 subjects??

Steve

Thanks Steve, I had all three tubes on which is 60mm extension in total with the lens at 300mm. With this set up I was about 80 to 90cm away (guesstimate). Biggest problem is keeping teh whole thing stable. It really needs some sort of mount on the lens because with the tubes on there is a fair bit sticking out the front of the camera.

I kinda figured that it might be fairly long.

With long primes or even zooms, the tripod mounts around the centre of gravity but with tubes etc, most of the weight will still be on the camera so that would cause grief if you tried mounting the tripod anywhere elso.

I imagine stuff like wind etc would look like an earthquake in the viewfinder.

something for me to look forward to!

Steve

avkomp wrote:I kinda figured that it might be fairly long.

With long primes or even zooms, the tripod mounts around the centre of gravity but with tubes etc, most of the weight will still be on the camera so that would cause grief if you tried mounting the tripod anywhere elso.

I imagine stuff like wind etc would look like an earthquake in the viewfinder.

something for me to look forward to!

Steve

The Dragonfly was handheld as I was chasing the thing around for a couple of minutes waiting for a moment, but the hoppers were not moving much at all so I set up on the tripod. There was a slight breeze and they were moving back and forth by a few centimetres. Just had to wait for them to reach the top of the swing before they sprung back again.

To give you an idea of scale they were only about 1.5cm long.

Fun and games

Nice sharp images Mark. I agree the pattern of the wing joins on the dragonfly are incredible. Have been tossing up whether to try for stepdown rings to fit the Canon 500D closeup lens to my 62mm 35-70F/2.8 AF-D or get the extension tubes. What sort are you using - Kenko? and what functions do you lose once in place?
cheers
marco

marcotrov wrote:Nice sharp images Mark. I agree the pattern of the wing joins on the dragonfly are incredible. Have been tossing up whether to try for stepdown rings to fit the Canon 500D closeup lens to my 62mm 35-70F/2.8 AF-D or get the extension tubes. What sort are you using - Kenko? and what functions do you lose once in place?
cheers
marco

HI Marco, they are "Glanz Triplus". Got them from Photocontinental for $178.00 (on a sale day RRP $198.00). The Kenko were $228.00 (I think) and I could not see any difference. At the end of it all there is no lens quality to worry about.

Don't lose any functions as they are fully compatible with all the auto functions focus, aperture etc. but manual focus is the way to go with the lenses I have as the A/F is a little slow.

Mark love the Dragon fly... I like the fact the shot i a little unexpected as it fills so much of the frame, and I think the DOF works well in this shot to draw attention to the detail in their wings (which are incredible when you stop and think about them).
The hopper is nicely done as well, but for me the dragon is definitely my favourite (and handheld!) nicely done!

Mark,

I love your new signature line. A welcome bit of cheer.

All honour and glory be unto thee also for being able to hand hold a rig like that so effectively.

Quite inspiring!

Cheers,

Alpha_7 wrote:Mark love the Dragon fly... I like the fact the shot i a little unexpected as it fills so much of the frame, and I think the DOF works well in this shot to draw attention to the detail in their wings (which are incredible when you stop and think about them).
The hopper is nicely done as well, but for me the dragon is definitely my favourite (and handheld!) nicely done!

Thanks Craig. At the time I would have liked to get more in the shot but it is a bit hard to whip off a couple of extension tubes while the Dragonfly sits and waits. In hindsight though I am really happy how it turned out. I cloned out the little bits of spider web across the wing (I think it was spider web) and printed it out A4 this morning. I think it's heading for a frame and the wall. The blue colour came up a treat

I think I'll be out the back later looking for more

Sheetshooter wrote:Mark,

I love your new signature line. A welcome bit of cheer.

All honour and glory be unto thee also for being able to hand hold a rig like that so effectively.

Quite inspiring!

Cheers,

Thanks Walter.

It can be a bit of a handfull. Here is a shot of the whole shebang in all it's glory. The monster tripod has since been replaced with a neat Manfrotto number Handy for remote mounting the flash though

Oh my Gosh, thats bloody big. Dude I tip my hat to you, having not seen a full assembled extension tubes + 70-300, that's massive!!! I guess the one good thing is the extension tubes have no additional glass so can't weigh as much it looks but still, it must be no easy feat tracking fast moving tiny insects with that number!!

I'm still shaking my head...