Thread: Show 'Insect'

I've posted this one in another thread already but it fits here as well.

GX100

Bug on Rose Bush Unknown

Mal Great idea! The photo's here are amazing..all of them. I've just recently tried my hand at taking Macro's but still have many more miles to travel on this path. It's fascinating what detail is available through the lens.

Well... woke up this morning to a fantastic day for lighting.... so went in search of what the day had to offer.....

Panasonic G1 with Sigma DG 105mm f/2.8 Macro lens

Barrie

Panasonic G1 with Sigma DG 105mm, f/2.8 Macro lens

Barrie

I cannot compete with the shooting power of the macro lenses here.

Just as a fun exercise, I decided to have a play with some close focusing of my "standard" lenses. That's the Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 on the Olympus E-P1 which focuses down to a very useful 0.17m and compare that to my Nikon D90 and Nikkor 18-105mm zoom set to 105mm and focussed to its minimum of 0.45m. The results were interesting:

First the Olympus...


St Andrews Cross spider OV by peterb666, on Flickr

Now the Nikon...


St Andrews Cross spider N17105 by peterb666, on Flickr

Now some details:

The first photo was taken with the Olympus E-P1 and Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 set to approximately f/5.6 or f/8 to get a fair bit of depth of field. ISO400 and 1/20s completes the photo specs. As stated, the distance was 0.17m which is the minimum focus distance for this lens. Only minor cropping when straightening the picture. I am very impressed by the detail of this picture.

The second photo was taken with the Nikon D90 and Nikkor 18-105mm zoom set to 105mm. The aperture set to f/16 which was necessary to get all of the spider in focus and it only just managed that. ISO400 and 1/20s completes the photo specs.

The distance was of course 0.45m. Now while this is 3 times the distance of the Voigtlander lens, bear in mind that the effective focal length of the Nikon is 157 mm compared to 50mm. Even so, a fair bit of cropping was required as well.

While I generally find the metering of the Nikon fairly accurate, it was way off in this. I applied +1EV compensation but still needed to bring up the exposure by over a stop in Photoshop. While the colour rendering of the leaves is spot on, and the out of focus detail fairly similar despite the quite different apertures, what surprised me was a very different colour rendering of the spider. I also had to apply a bucket load of sharpening to the spider.

While a very odd-ball comparison, I give this as a clear win to the Olympus E-P1 and Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95. On the plus side for the Nikon combo - I think the web looks better.

I wish someone would make a quality 2x teleconverter for MFT. That would make the Voigtlander nearly a macro lens. With a 2x converter and a 12.5mm extension ring, you would have greater than 1:1 and still have a fairly bright lens for focussing.

Wow, great shots guys and gals. I really like the framing of the bee on the yellow flower. You could not frame that better, lucky shotting!

Thanks dave

Peter, thank you for bringing this thread back up with your spider pix. I see that I'd missed quite a few in between. Though I am a bit of an arachnophobe, I do appreciate your photos and the comparisons you've made.