Macro reverse ring

 I haven't been very active here in Blogger lately. Sorry about that. But I didn't forget about photography. I have still been doing some macro photos, and now I took it to the next level.

 I want to tell you about a great little thing called "macro reverse ring". What it basically does is, you can reverse your lens on your camera, so the front element of the lens faces the camera sensor. This lets you get really close to your subjects and give you better magnification, so you get cheap yet reliable macro lens of your, for example, kit lens. I bought it for 9.90€, so it was cheap.

 The reverse ring screws directly to your lens filter slot. As seen in the picture:

Shooting with the lens

When it comes to shooting with this lens, with the reverse ring on, it gets a bit more difficult than usual photography. Since you need to get really close to your subjects, it's harder to get the results you want. There are few reasons for that:

*When getting close to your subject, for example a fly, it will get scared and fly away, you have to be extremely patient and move slowly. Before, I used my Tamron 18-200mm, and the minimum range it could focus was 35cm, with the reverse ring, my kit lens focuses at less than 5cm or so.
*You pretty much can't use a tripod when shooting in closest range you can get, since the tripod will just get in the way in most cases. You can however find something to lean on.
*You have to manually adjust your aperture with the little slider in the back of your lens. Since the lens is reversed, all you can set up in you camera is shutter speed and ISO.

There may be other reasons also that I can't think right now...


Using the flash

 I mostly use my flash as a primary source of light, so I can totally freeze the moment. Since I don't have the high speed flash sync, I can't go over 1/200th shutter speed when using flash. It's usually enough, but sometimes when you have some wind or the subjects move around too much, you will see the movement on the image. For that I use my flash at 1/4 to1/1 power. I completely underexpose my image and the flash corrects the exposure for me(without the flash the image is almost completely dark). Since the flash goes off for so short time, it helps get the image easier even when the object is moving.

Overall, the reverse macro ring was a great buy. I get so much closer to the subjects, and I love the images I can make with this. Really recommend you try it also if you have a DSLR and a kit lens or something lying around the house.

Some images taken with the lens reversed

The amazing Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 VC Di USD

Recently I've been looking to buy a new lens. I wanted something that has really nice image quality and which isn't too expensive. I came across this Tamron 70-300 f/4-5.6 VC Di USD. Read some good things about it, but wasn't sure, if it really was that good, so I decided to borrow and try it for a day.

Pros:
*Really inexpensive
*Fairly light compared to size
*VC work really well
*Image quality is very nice
*Focusing and zoom ring move very smoothly
*Has vignetting, but that doesn't bother me
*Focus speed is ok, but not the fastest
*Nice zoom range

Cons:
*Feels plasticky
*The VC makes some noise
*Chromatic aberration

 So, I did a series of tests, and came to conclusion that this lens performs really amazingly. I tested the aberration, image quality, vignetting and distortion. I have to say that it passed all my needs for a lens.
  The image quality is great.
  There is some vignetting, but it isn't too bad. After f/11 it was completely gone and even at f/4 there was very little of it.
  There is aberration though, you can mostly remove it with some editing, but sometimes, in the most extreme cases, you have to make the best you can, but you'll still have some.

                        Chromatic aberration tests

70mm, 1/500, f/7,1, iso200

70mm, 1/1000, f/4, iso200

70mm, 1/640, f/5.6, iso200

300mm, 1/640, f/5.6, iso200

300mm, 1/400, f/7.1, iso200

Distortion

Wont post the vignetting test photos, because there will be too many of them, and they are boring :) Instead, I'll just post some images of Tallinn and some other things, so you'll see how nice images I produced with this lens.

These are all straight from the camera
only saved them to jpeg

In the end, I decided I wouldn't buy this lens. I can't spend any money right now. But in the future, if I have any free money, I will certainly consider this one. And, I recommend it to anyone who are looking for great zoom.

More macro :)

 My stocks on alamy.com

Just posting some images :)

My stocks on Alamy.com

Cool macro II

My stock photos @ Alamy.com

 Went out to forest/park today, to see if I could find any other cool bugs. Who said there were no mosquitoes this year... I was eaten alive lol.

 Anyway I went to shoot some bugs, flies etc. So here are the best photos I made :)

My stock photos @ Alamy.com

Cool Macro

 My stock photos @ Alamy.com

Today I went out to take some Macro shots of bugs. The problem was that I couldn't find too many of them. Luckily I still saw some and managed to produce some nice images :)

 Before going out, I thought I'd use my flash to light the set. I knew I'd be using my light pretty close to my subjects, so, I needed something to soften it. The softbox, I built before, was kinda too big for this. So, I decided to build a second, smaller one, that I could mount directly on my flash.

Doesn't look much, but works just fine

 For this, I pretty much used the same materials as before. I only didn't use the wires, because this softbox is smaller, so it didn't need that much support. For the front of the softbox, I used some plastic to strengthen it a bit. Other parts are just aluminum paper and some tape.

 As for the shoot. I used 2 tripods, one for my camera, the other for flash. I also used the radio flash triggering system. I played with my cameras settings a lot to get the best shots I could. And wow, did that make a difference. The photos I took today, compared to the shots I have taken before, were from another planet.
 For some reason I always thought that my lens wasn't the best for the job(I used Tamron 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 DiII Macro). I always got my images unsharp and not looking that great. They always needed a lot of work in lightroom.With this setup, my images came to life. They are so much better I think. Live and learn :)

Anyway, judge my images yourself :)

My stock photos @ Alamy.com

Battery grip

My stock photos @ Alamy.com

Some time ago I ordered a Battery grip from China.  It was very cheap compared to the prices here in Estonia. In fact it was about 5x cheaper. Also the shipping was free so no extra money used with delivery. Also an IR remote came with it.

The grip sits perfectly on my camera. It's made of plastic, but it seems to be pretty strong for now. Gives my camera the ability to use IR remote and it's pretty light, so, it doesn't add much weight. The connection cord is the right length, so it's not in the way. The grip takes 2x EN-EL14 batteries, so it doubles the shots I can take in one charge. Also makes my camera a little bit bigger(which I haven't gotten used to yet). It doesn't have a rubber grip on it, but that's ok, since it sits nicely in my hands.

Overall, I think it was money well spent for now. I have had it since yesterday, but as much as I've used it, it is great.

Edit: I found that sometimes when using the grips shutter button on close objects, it makes autofocus confused(I think it's in certain light conditions). It doesn't focus as quick and searches focus from closest to infinity. I tried many times with both my cameras shutter button and the one on the grip on same object at same distance. Pressing the grips shutter, it searched for focus, but cameras found it instantly. Don't know if it was one time thing or it happens in certain conditions.

And as always some images:

This is the battery grip and connection cord

Takes 2x EN-EL batteries

 Shutter button and on/off switch

My stock photos @ Alamy.com