Greetings.
Thought I would throw this one up on the web for a couple of reasons:
1) It is a potentially amazing shot.
2) It has some major faults, which I think people can learn from...
This is the shot of the edge of a Fungia sp. coral. The coral was very close to the edge of the tank, so I had the chance to take the shot. When shooting at 5:1, you are very limited to how far away from the lens you can shoot. The max focus distance is around 4-5 cm from the lens.
I had the lens stopped down to 2.8 for focus. The ridges are higher than you would think, and because of the extremely narrow depth of field at this magnification, I knew it would be iffy... I could focus the tops of the ridges, I could try for a middle point, or I could focus on the bottom valley. I opted for a 'middle' focus point, then changed the f-stop to f22. I was hoping that I could get the tops in reasonable focus, as well as the bottom...
Alas, it was not to be... Although I had the flash maybe 1 inch above the lens pointing straight at the coral, the flash was not strong enough, and underexposed the slide by about one stop.
So, Lesson #1: When using Velvia at 5:1, use f16 as max.
Lesson #2: Looking at the image again, I see that the more important details are the upper parts of the ridges. Focus point should be at the lower tips, then stop down to get the upper portions in focus.
Why the upper portions? Well, there were these amazing distribution patterns in the zooxanthellae cells at the tips of the ridges. This photo hints at them, but they are too blurry to be acceptable to me. I should have thought this one out a little better- AND I should have taken more than one exposure.
Hope this helps those just learning.
Regards.
Mike Kirda
Thought I would throw this one up on the web for a couple of reasons:
1) It is a potentially amazing shot.
2) It has some major faults, which I think people can learn from...
This is the shot of the edge of a Fungia sp. coral. The coral was very close to the edge of the tank, so I had the chance to take the shot. When shooting at 5:1, you are very limited to how far away from the lens you can shoot. The max focus distance is around 4-5 cm from the lens.
I had the lens stopped down to 2.8 for focus. The ridges are higher than you would think, and because of the extremely narrow depth of field at this magnification, I knew it would be iffy... I could focus the tops of the ridges, I could try for a middle point, or I could focus on the bottom valley. I opted for a 'middle' focus point, then changed the f-stop to f22. I was hoping that I could get the tops in reasonable focus, as well as the bottom...
Alas, it was not to be... Although I had the flash maybe 1 inch above the lens pointing straight at the coral, the flash was not strong enough, and underexposed the slide by about one stop.
So, Lesson #1: When using Velvia at 5:1, use f16 as max.
Lesson #2: Looking at the image again, I see that the more important details are the upper parts of the ridges. Focus point should be at the lower tips, then stop down to get the upper portions in focus.
Why the upper portions? Well, there were these amazing distribution patterns in the zooxanthellae cells at the tips of the ridges. This photo hints at them, but they are too blurry to be acceptable to me. I should have thought this one out a little better- AND I should have taken more than one exposure.
Hope this helps those just learning.
Regards.
Mike Kirda
