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Transition from Macro to Microphotography

Lesson 2 from: Beyond Macro Photography: Into the Microscopic World

Charles Krebs

Transition from Macro to Microphotography

Lesson 2 from: Beyond Macro Photography: Into the Microscopic World

Charles Krebs

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Lesson Info

2. Transition from Macro to Microphotography

Lesson Info

Transition from Macro to Microphotography

There's a transition zone and I like to talk about this sort of transition because what I'm going to talk about primarily today now are the microscope optics and I say objectives and that's objective not as a goal lands on microscope plans is typically called an objective so hear me say microscope objective it's not like my objective is to get a microscope we're talking about the land but I want to go over them and we will go over them in detail because there's thousands thousands thousands you know I remember a conversation I had with someone I'm going to get myself a night content x because I want to do pictures like you have you know I said well and at the time I looked just out of curiosity had a little spare time and I just went through nikon just nikon looked at their catalogued industrial microscopes the biological microscopes I think they were like seventy ten x microscope objectives that you could choose him and that's just the current thing two years ago three years ago they ...

had another one and then there's like in his ice and then there's olympus you know so it's if you're starting out with this the microscope objectives themselves the lenses are a little bit cryptic because they're not they're not marked in the usual way that we see out of out of that seventy for example that was in that current nikon catalog of the year to ago there are maybe only two or three that would be good for maybe more for a tabletop set up now you get into heavy duty microscopes biological microscope industrial max they all have a specific purpose they will have a reason for existence but they're all they're all a little bit different and I won't try to come up with a percentage but many, many, many people that getting violent this wind up buying a couple of paper weights before they get an optic that they can use okay in other words they get it to say I just got this and I say well yeah you know you're working distances you know point two millimeters you know good luck with that lighting you know, lighting something with that so we're going toe uh 00:01:58.737 --> 00:02:01. we're going to talk about that transition here the 00:02:03.49 --> 00:02:05. macro lenses again like I say they focused typically 00:02:05.73 --> 00:02:08. under point five or half life sized toe life size 00:02:09.52 --> 00:02:12. between just going touch upon some of the methods 00:02:13.02 --> 00:02:14. that we use between 00:02:15.32 --> 00:02:18. one x and five x because this is sort of the transition 00:02:18.51 --> 00:02:21. zone if our macro lens ends at one and I really wantto 00:02:21.74 --> 00:02:24. the thrust of this course is really to talk about 00:02:25.12 --> 00:02:28. five exit up will say, well, how what how do I work 00:02:28.15 --> 00:02:30. in between? Well well, look there's a there's a there's 00:02:30.77 --> 00:02:32. a few options and we're going to go over those briefly 00:02:36.12 --> 00:02:38. couple things t understand as you're magnification 00:02:38.59 --> 00:02:41. increases that's we get into the microscopic world 00:02:41.72 --> 00:02:44. the difficulty that you cannot close to photography 00:02:44.57 --> 00:02:48. shallow depth of field vibration they increase exponentially 00:02:48.46 --> 00:02:50. it's we're going to look at some of this and it's 00:02:50.67 --> 00:02:53. just it's almost frightened if you look at it you 00:02:53.12 --> 00:02:55. think how cow can I how can I even possibly do this? 00:02:56.11 --> 00:02:58. The optics the optics we want to use are going to 00:02:58.46 --> 00:03:01. be different then you're familiar with so we're going 00:03:01.87 --> 00:03:05. to talk about that digital has allowed us now to use 00:03:05.39 --> 00:03:08. focus stacking techniques and that this is the key 00:03:08.52 --> 00:03:10. I don't think there's one picture you're going to 00:03:10.37 --> 00:03:15. see today of mine and that has not had focused stacking 00:03:15.82 --> 00:03:18. I don't know what this is where we'll get into this 00:03:18.13 --> 00:03:20. and we'll actually have a demo where we 00:03:22.42 --> 00:03:25. take a siri's of pictures and combined them to get 00:03:26.12 --> 00:03:29. effectively increased depth of field. At a certain 00:03:29.14 --> 00:03:32. point the tabletop set ups the stacking rigs the focus 00:03:33.52 --> 00:03:36. can't really cut it and you need to go to aa full 00:03:36.14 --> 00:03:38. fledged microscope that has a lot more precision, 00:03:38.27 --> 00:03:41. a lot more control and you know we'll get into that 00:03:41.82 --> 00:03:44. first let's get some sort of the sort of basics out 00:03:44.44 --> 00:03:47. away. I keep saying one x five x ten x twenty six 00:03:48.05 --> 00:03:50. and that can really realize that could be a little 00:03:50.04 --> 00:03:52. bit ambiguous. So this next slide and this is something 00:03:52.49 --> 00:03:57. you're gonna want to do and have is get a ruler no 00:03:57.72 --> 00:04:00. that's graduated millimeters okay you know what you're 00:04:00.2 --> 00:04:03. camera's going to be my camera is a cannon I used 00:04:03.95 --> 00:04:08. the psc I call it absent c sensor size and there's 00:04:08.08 --> 00:04:10. a reason why choose that sensor size and we'll talk 00:04:10.87 --> 00:04:13. about that but the first thing I do now here I set 00:04:13.25 --> 00:04:15. up one of my magnification they took a picture of 00:04:15.57 --> 00:04:17. the ruler and I've got what went through three four 00:04:17.77 --> 00:04:21. five six about six and a half millimetres that's how 00:04:21.04 --> 00:04:23. big the field is left to right that I'm taking a picture 00:04:23.89 --> 00:04:27. and knowing that having a ruling we can now come up 00:04:27.42 --> 00:04:29. with what's my mat you say well what's my magnification 00:04:29.57 --> 00:04:31. I got this funky set up here I did what you did and 00:04:31.96 --> 00:04:34. I have no idea what my magnification okay this is 00:04:34.68 --> 00:04:37. a white red ical that I photographed on a black background 00:04:38.14 --> 00:04:40. with this set up and I've got one two three four about 00:04:40.49 --> 00:04:44. four and a half millimeters in the picture so not 00:04:44.79 --> 00:04:46. a lot of formulas relationships you need to know but 00:04:46.6 --> 00:04:49. magnification is important so it's it's it's field 00:04:49.92 --> 00:04:52. size over object size when we're working this way 00:04:52.28 --> 00:04:55. you can think of the recorded with over the sensor 00:04:55.13 --> 00:04:58. with so I recorded a field four point four six like 00:04:58.27 --> 00:04:59. fudge because they knew what the answer had to be 00:05:00.2 --> 00:05:02. but it's four point four six divided by twenty two 00:05:02.54 --> 00:05:05. point three which is my sensor size, my sensor measures 00:05:05.66 --> 00:05:08. twenty two point three millimeters left to right. 00:05:08.36 --> 00:05:12. Cannon senses are a tad smaller. The psc senses or 00:05:12.59 --> 00:05:15. a tad small. The nikon, pentax and sony and the other 00:05:15.12 --> 00:05:17. side. You thought you can find out easily what it 00:05:17.79 --> 00:05:20. is. So I took this picture at a magnification of five 00:05:20.43 --> 00:05:22. x okay, and 00:05:27.04 --> 00:05:30. in that space in between between one x and five x 00:05:31.84 --> 00:05:35. there are right ways that you can accomplish that 00:05:35.11 --> 00:05:38. without going into the microscope objectives and actually 00:05:38.45 --> 00:05:42. I recommend not considering the microscope objectives 00:05:42.48 --> 00:05:46. until you get above five x so we have supplementary 00:05:46.07 --> 00:05:49. close up lenses these air things thes air things where 00:05:49.01 --> 00:05:50. there's a lot of information out there and you've 00:05:50.67 --> 00:05:54. probably seen it and maybe maybe even used them all 00:05:55.32 --> 00:05:58. they get you into that area between where your macro 00:05:58.26 --> 00:06:00. lens off and we might want to start looking at some 00:06:00.49 --> 00:06:04. of these other techniques stacked lenses reverse mounted lenses and a really spiffy len's a cannon makes which is a one to five one x to five x macro lands okay this is this is kind of unique can it can be an odd alliance to use sometimes but let's take a look real quick here the supplementary close up lenses they just fit on the front of your lens here we have ah ray knocks which is my khan used to make him everybody kind of made these and then for some reason nikon doesn't make him any more but there's a company called ray knocks in japan this is ray knocks one fifty it's about a two hundred millimeter lens you put it on the front and it allows you to focus closer so here it is on my on my two hundred millimeter macro and which normally ends up at one times life size. But this was going to take me down, maybe to about one and a half, one of three quarters. So it just increases the range. The other another method would be stacked lenses now this looks really bizarre this is a no fifty two two hundred millimeter fifty five to twenty million aid kit lens for my nikon and in front of that I've reversed method of older fifty millimeter nikon lens and ah it's actually quite easy to do all you need is something like this this is a lens coupling ring this has a fifty two millimeter thread on each side screwed on the lens screw the other lines on backwards and this is in effect a very high powered supplementary close up lens but you want to use the aperture so you have to keep in mind with a lot of not a lot some cannon lenses he f lines is a lot of the new nikon lenses you no longer have emanuel aperture control on the front and that's where you want to control the appetite so this is a technique you use it works well but it has its advantages and disadvantages now the other is reversing the lands and just putting it on 00:07:59.723 --> 00:08:02. extension tube's very economical way I've gotta revert 00:08:02.61 --> 00:08:06. lance reversal ring on a set of chinese inexpensive 00:08:06.4 --> 00:08:09. chinese extension tube's eight bucks for the extension 00:08:09.23 --> 00:08:11. tube's maybe ten bucks for the reversing ring the 00:08:11.2 --> 00:08:14. lens I already had and I'm kind of in business by 00:08:14.04 --> 00:08:16. varying the extension tubing. Matt, I can change the 00:08:16.72 --> 00:08:17. magnification. 00:08:18.56 --> 00:08:21. Okay? And this last method I'm going to show you here 00:08:21.72 --> 00:08:25. not the show. I'll show you the the cannon isn't that 00:08:25.25 --> 00:08:29. the method I I tend to use in that interim space between 00:08:29.25 --> 00:08:32. one x and five x, and this is a bellows, and I use 00:08:32.82 --> 00:08:35. enlarging linda's, reverse mounted, enlarging lands. 00:08:35.6 --> 00:08:37. They mount them in reverse, because that keeps the 00:08:37.82 --> 00:08:41. optical parameters close to where the designer intended. 00:08:41.56 --> 00:08:44. Here you see an eighty millimeter on the fellows. 00:08:45.14 --> 00:08:47. Lower left is a sixty three millimeter nikon, and 00:08:47.94 --> 00:08:51. the lower right is a forty millimeter april competent. 00:08:51.31 --> 00:08:54. Hmm, very good lenses. And this is what I use, and 00:08:54.49 --> 00:08:56. this was what fills the gap now for me 00:08:57.98 --> 00:09:01. on dh fifty five, the cannon lands I referred to. 00:09:05.18 --> 00:09:07. It's. More of an outdoor lindstrom, use the field, 00:09:07.23 --> 00:09:10. let's, obviously, some of these things, I don't wantto 00:09:10.13 --> 00:09:12. bellows and things. I'm not interested in having them 00:09:12.07 --> 00:09:15. out in the field. The cannon lens, no problem. So 00:09:15.26 --> 00:09:18. what type of images you're going to get in this in 00:09:18.1 --> 00:09:21. this interim range here, between one exit five x. 00:09:21.98 --> 00:09:24. What, you're going to get shots like this? Yeah, you 00:09:24.48 --> 00:09:29. have, ah, honeybee on the right, a midge on the left 00:09:30.08 --> 00:09:31. and again, these are beyond 00:09:33.54 --> 00:09:34. the macro lens. 00:09:36.68 --> 00:09:38. But not quite to where I'm going to dig up the real 00:09:38.94 --> 00:09:41. high magnification america work. This is, ah, water 00:09:41.11 --> 00:09:43. boatman in an insect kind of let it to look a little 00:09:43.77 --> 00:09:47. bit like darth vader, you know, so fascinating, I 00:09:47.27 --> 00:09:50. think, grasshopper wing this has done with that eighty 00:09:50.73 --> 00:09:53. millimeter lens on the billows, as I showed you, earl 00:09:53.47 --> 00:09:53. here, 00:09:54.78 --> 00:09:56. this is a yellow jacket, 00:09:57.63 --> 00:09:59. done with a thirty five millimeter lands on a bellows, 00:10:00.62 --> 00:10:03. okay, jewel beetle I love I love the jewel beetles, 00:10:04.0 --> 00:10:07. asai said. I liked the structural color ah! 00:10:10.77 --> 00:10:14. And lastly, sort of the range. On the left. We have 00:10:14.8 --> 00:10:16. another jewel beetle on the right. We have the interior 00:10:16.82 --> 00:10:19. of a flower, and that this is sort of in that range 00:10:19.75 --> 00:10:23. from one to five. But these could be anything. You 00:10:23.45 --> 00:10:25. really don't know how big the subject. So I'm going 00:10:25.32 --> 00:10:26. to give you a. 00:10:29.8 --> 00:10:31. The penny you see here 00:10:32.24 --> 00:10:34. just photographed with with a one to one macro lens 00:10:35.3 --> 00:10:40. on an a p s c sized sensor. The boxes that you see 00:10:40.36 --> 00:10:44. the red box, the blue box in the green box indicate 00:10:44.56 --> 00:10:47. the red box indicates a five x magnification. The 00:10:47.95 --> 00:10:53. blue box indicates ten x, and the the green box indicates 00:10:53.48 --> 00:10:55. a twenty acts. So just to give you some sort of an 00:10:55.43 --> 00:10:58. idea, everybody has a sense of how big a penny is. 00:10:58.8 --> 00:11:00. You came, so we have 00:11:01.7 --> 00:11:03. five x all right, 00:11:05.36 --> 00:11:09. ten x that's the year two thousand. We have a twenty 00:11:09.05 --> 00:11:09. x 00:11:11.16 --> 00:11:12. and I took it even one step further. 00:11:14.3 --> 00:11:16. This is a fifty x that's, just the lower edge of the 00:11:16.98 --> 00:11:19. two. I'm going to go forward here. This is that penny 00:11:19.59 --> 00:11:22. again. If you looked at just the lower left corner 00:11:22.73 --> 00:11:25. of the two that's, what we have there.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Beyond Macro Photography: Into the Microscopic World Slides

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Like the other reviewers I enjoyed this class but would like a very in-depth part 2. He just mention lighting, a ping pong ball and a white dome. I'd like to learn how those are used. Where do you get the dome, what material is it, etc. I'd also like to learn about his specimens. While he mentions what they are, how do you use the water from your bird bath? Does it go on a slide? Please do a part 2. Thanks!

Sara Zancotti
 

Super interesting but too short. I would love to have a longer course with Charles! Thank you Charles, you made me remember my childhood. I had a simple little microscope that my father gave me back in the 90s - sweet memories!

stamage
 

I found this course very interesting. I, like other reviewers, would have enjoyed a longer presentation with more hands on instruction. I'd like something that goes from A-Z, everything from acquiring your subjects (Are they purchased, caught, frozen, pinned, etc) to the photographing of the subject (lighting, etc.), to the end result. The focus stacking was the most hands on portion while other sections were just informative. I really enjoyed the class and Mr. Krebs knows his stuff but I would pay to have another more in depth and hands-on kind of class with Mr. Krebs,

Student Work

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