Reversed lens Macro

[DivingDave1980]

Hello,

I took these pictures today of a zebra jumping spider on a PVC window (almost looks like it is in a studio!).

Equipment:

Canon 400D
EF-S 18-55mm lens reversed
f/18 (I think - done using the DOF preview trick)
Nissin Di622 flash on camera with the bounce card extended.

Is this the best I can expect with this technique or could I do better? Any criticisms would be gratefully recieved!! I think they may be a bit soft, but I'm quite impressed with the quality.

Dave.

[Jason Green]

Evening Dave,

Sorry, I can't really help with the question as I don't really do DSLRs yet. The spider... I believe there is the potential for this to be a juvenile Salticus cingulatus (likely equally common, still) on account of the developing third shade of colour running forward along the center of the abdomen (when more adult they should be more like forward-pointing chevrons). The pale bars on the top of the thorax also makes me think it's a juvenile (of this species).

I wish you luck with your experimentations

Take care,

Jason

[squishy]

You might get sharper results if you use a larger aperture. At f/18 at that magnification diffraction may soften your images considerably.

Maybe try f/10 or a little smaller. Of course though, then you get a smaller DoF. Most people I've talked to don't use an aperture smaller than f/16 at 1:1 or closer.

You've got to find a balance between diffraction softness and DoF.

Maybe you could also apply some unsharp mask to those photos. Sharpening is a valuable (and often necessary to some extent) tool with digital photography.

[pressld2]

Yep I agree with Adam (squishy). I'd also recommend coming down from ISO 800 if you can. Some softness may be due to noise reduction. As you're using flash you should find that you can use ISO 200 and still get 1/200th of a second, especially if you take Adam's advice and try at f11.

Good photos though, especially the first and last. In the middle three you've just clipped the front legs with the edge of the frame.

Dave P.

[squishy]

great first attempts? how big do you reckon that spider was?

[DivingDave1980]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your responses...

Jason - I should learn not to assume exactly which species it is. I think you may be right about the species, but the only way to be sure would be to flip her (if she is an adult) over and take a look at the epigyne. But as you say, she (he) may be a juvenile. If I can find her (him) again, I'll try and carefully capture and take a picture through cling film for diagnostic purposes....

Squishy (1) - I was worried about diffraction, so I didn't go beyond f/18 for that reason (I heard that diffraction becomes really quite bad beyond f/16 but I wanted a bit more DoF!). I performed the following with the RAW images in Canon DPP (I usually use RAWTherapee / GIMP on Linux, but I'm on a windows machine at the moment):

Exposure compensation adjustment
Levels
Sharpness +3 (ish)
Saturation +2 (ish)
Chrominance noise reduction ~10
Luminance noise reduction ~1

It is the luminance noise reduction which causes loss of sharpness so I tried to keep that to a minimum.

When I get time I might try doing some selective sharpening in the luminance channel using the GIMP...

pressld2 - Good idea, unfortunately because the flash is pointing forwards, and the subject is directly down, most of the flash is wasted - it's only the light being reflected from the reflecting card which is used for the exposure, hence the high ISO. The images were quite dark anyway so I've lightened them using the RAW exposure adjustment (which I guess wouldn't help with softness anyway??). I've ordered an off camera shoe cord which will help, but I may think about producing a diffuser out of an empty plastic milk bottle which might be better (and less harsh than direct flash). I did notice the clipped legs (after I'd posted!) which is a shame - I was concentrating on pointing the middle focus point to the eyes, even though focussing consisted of moving the camera backwards and forwards. I can really appreciate some of the fantastic macro images in the Gallery and how difficult it is to acheive such good results!!!

Squishy (2) - Thanks! I was very pleasantly surprised with them! There are a few out of focus shots, but these were the best out of 9 in total (so 5 out of 9 isn't bad??!). It was about 5-6mm in length (I would say), but I'm not great with estimating measurements.

Thanks for the comments!!

Dave.

[Jason Green]

Originally Posted by DivingDave1980

Jason - I should learn not to assume exactly which species it is.

It isn't your 'fault' [for want of a better word], the 'Net seems to be full of incorrectly-named photos of cingulatus. Also, I apologise for taking your thread slightly off-track; I should have VM'd you instead.

OK, as you were!

[DivingDave1980]

Jason - I know what you mean, but it is my 'fault'! I have Roberts' Spiders of Britain and Northern Europe - I just assumed it was S. scenicus as Mr Roberts says S. cingulatus is "Much less common than S. scenicus, but widespread throughout Britain" and I read that as "S. cingulatus is not common" which is of course incorrect!

I went into the garden this afternoon and took some more snaps.

The first is the set up I'm using (taken with my old Olympus c770uz). I can't believe the amount of Chromatic aberration in the picture (the milk bottle has a purple halo!).

The others are as follows:
1) A Coleopteran larva?
2) Woodlouse
3) Homopteran nymphs?
4) Heteropteran
5) Homoptera copulating

An improvement? Are they over sharpened? All of them have been selectively sharpened, and taken at ISO 200. I think the diffuser I made from an empty plastic milk bottle really helped (and is cheap!). I also chose f/14 for the pictures, as I really wanted to try and keep the DoF as large as I could. The pic of the copulating Homoptera has been cropped slightly (but not much).

Taking pictures like this is really really hard!

Let me know what you think, and if you can identify them better than I can!

Oh, I didn't try and selectively sharpen the Spider pics as the noise at ISO 800 was unbearably bad!!

Dave.

[pressld2]

Cheap it may be but it's very effective! These are good images and don't look over-sharpened to me.

'Fraid I can't help with the IDs but Jason probably can...

Dave P.

[Bruce Williams]

I agree - these images (particularly the woodlouse and beetle larvae) show significant improvement over your earlier attempts. Your milk bottle diffuser is creating a very pleasing and natural illumination with no obtrusive highlights or unnatural shadows. Exposure is spot-on and f/14 gives good detail with this reverse lens set-up - critical focus on the woodlouse is excellent too.

ISO200 (important in macro) shows a big improvement and I think that you've done a pretty good job on selective sharpening with no obvious artifacting that I could see.

Bruce