 |
| Fuchsia photographed at 1:1 (full frame). (Click to view larger.) |
It was a dank and foggy morning in my neighborhood yesterday and I was feeling too lazy to go for my customary long walk, so I decided to test an old 200mm Micro-Nikkor AI-S lens that I've kept stowed away for many years. I'd originally paired this lens with a Nikon F3 but stopped using it when I bought a D800 (could it really be almost 10 years ago?!) because I thought it wasn't sharp enough.
That idea was based on a close-up photo I'd made of some goldfields on Mt. Tamalpais. I kind of liked the soft-focus look for that subject, but I felt such a soft lens wouldn't do once I had a 36 megapixel camera.
At first I thought I'd do the test out back, where the fuchsia flowers are, but I decided to bring one of the blossoms indoors to do it right, using a tripod. I compared the 200mm with a 105mm AF Micro Nikkor that I use all the time. The 200mm only goes to 1:2, so I set the 105mm likewise, and shot a single frame at f/16, using a flash.
The result was a great reminder that the fault for a soft image is probably technique, not equipment. Maybe those goldfields jiggled in a slight breeze that I didn't detect. Maybe I didn't set the focus point in just the right place for the aperture I used. In any case, the 200mm image looked sharp. The lens was not the problem.
Since I had the fuchsia indoors anyway, I took a few shots of it with the 105mm at 1:1. I set the camera on a focusing rail so I could make focus stacks. This is old school stuff, where I have to manually turn a knob to adjust the camera position.
My first two tries on the fuchsia were sharp, but not throughout the whole subject area I wanted. Despite shooting at f/16, I couldn't get what I wanted until I barely turned the knob at all between each frame. It was as if the depth of field covered no more than half the diameter of the little white pollen sacs. The bonus was having the gnat on the stigma remain motionless during the time it took me to adjust the focusing rail through 17 frames, letting the flash recycle after each one.
 |
| Crop showing the area I wanted sharp. |
 |
| A little tighter crop. |
 |
| The set-up with 105mm and a hazel leaf for the background (I held the flash at a higher angle for the shots). |
 |
| After shooting the fuchsia I tossed the hazel leaves into the back yard. When I went down there hours later and saw how the mist had settled on one of the leaves I couldn't resist making another macro. I've always been fascinated by nature's intricate beauty, from the atomic to the galactic. |
 |
| Hazel in the Mist |
* * *
