splish splash

[famas]

I was going to go out and do some photography today, but its so bloody cold and i got distracted by other things i decided to try something different at home.

All shots were taken with d90 and the tokina 100mm macro, which im extreamly pleased with. i was torn between this lens and the sigma 105mm, As it turns out a friend came with me when i bought the tokina and bought the sigma for himself. Now im a bit bias when it comes to the tokina as i think its a great lens, but there were a few things that we both agreed on. The build quality of the tokina was just as good if not better than the sigma, it felt heavier than the sigma, it auto focused quicker and to our eyes the image quality was just as good. not bad for £250
Another thing we noticed with the sigma was when manually focusing you need to pull the focus ring backwards on the lens (same as the tokina) but with the sigma you also need to set the switch on the camera body to manual focus, You didnt need to do this with the tokina.
its only a minor issue but it was enough to annoy me having to fumble around for the switch while trying to keep the shot composed.

any ways! the pictures.
for most of the fruit shots i used the flash gun with a shutter speed of 1/200 this is the maximum shutter speed when using the onboard flash, which i need to use to set off my flash gun. this was ok for the fruit as it fell slower than the coins.
the coins were harder to catch tho, i tried using lamps for light and upping the shutter speed to 1/4000 it caught the coin better but the lamps i had wern't really bright enough.

is there a way to use a faster shutter speed than 1/200 when using the onboard flash on the d90?

im going to have another go tomorrow in day light.

C+C welcome.

this was the set up i had.

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Heres some others i've taken with the tokina that i was pleased with. C+C welcome again

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thanks for looking
Dan

 

[famas]

Interesting idea may be to try using soda water or lemonade to add some fizz and more bubbles,.

now thats an idea! +1 to you, i was going to try some food dyes tomorrow as well.

 

[famas]

thanks for the comments guys!

yeah its the tokina 100mm f2.8

the purple colour is from my other monitor that i left on. i did remove it from the 20p shot at first but i thought it looked better with it there?

the seagul shot has been heavily croped and was shot at ISO400 which might explain the grain?

 

[famas]

Would a lightbox and a couple of strong lights be an alternative for the flash?

yes, and i think you would get better results as well, but you would need some very very strong lights.

Famas,

Did you use a remote to take the piccies or the viewfinder on the camera itself?

once i had set every thing in place i held the lime in position and used liveview and auto focus to get the focus right, once that was set i changed the focus to manual and tried to drop the lime were i had set the focus.
the objects drop so fast you couldn't use the view finder any way. i just half press the shutter release then drop the object then quickly press the shutter release all the way. it takes a bit of time to learn when to press the shutter release after you've droped the object, but you soon start getting it right.
then its just a case of taking loads of shots and saving the good ones.
i took over 170 pics and only had about 7or8 that i liked.

hope that made sense.
ive just been doing some more, i'll update in a bit


thanks again.

 

[famas]

i had a look for food dyes earlyer, but no luck. i'll fetch the ketchup

 

[famas]

had another go at it today. tried setting up near a window to get as much light as possible, but it didnt really help. So i went back to using the flash but this time with a black backround.
i think as said above this would work really well in a light box with some strong lights, this will be my next project
C+C welcome again.

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thanks for looking
Dan

 

[famas]

cheers!

just using my nikon sb-600, one thing i've got from taking these pics is a better understanding of the flash settings etc both on the flash and in camera.

 

[famas]

these were taken with the d90 is comander mode were the sb-600 is set of by the onboard flash of the d90. it works really well but you can only sync up to 1/200th.
i've now got a nikon sc-28 ttl cord, which will let you sync up to 1/4000 as long as you have ep on.

 

[famas]

hmm, need to change the comment on that pic, it was taken with the sigma 70-300 APO but with macro filters not extension tubes.
macro filters are basically like magnifying glasses that screw onto the end of the lens like any other filter.
they're a cheap means of getting higher magnification but image quality and DOF is reduced.

extension tubes should work with any lens, They're just hollow tubes with no glass eliments inside, the more expensive ones (kenko/nikon/canon) have cpu contacts so you can change aperture in camera, cheap ones (like mine) have no cpu contacts, so aperture cannot be controled by the camera, unless you know the DOF preview button trick or have a lens with manual aperture control (like mine) Beacuse they have no glass inside image quality is not affected, but DOF is. You also get the effect of light fall off, when using tubes you will also lose 1,2+ stops of light, When looking through the view finder it will be a lot darker.
With my x2 converter and 3 stacked tubes all i see through the viewfinder is black, unless im in brightday light, just takes a bit of getting used to.

my tubes were from a friend who bought them off e-bay about a year ago for 99p, cheapest i've seen them now is about a fiver.

 

[famas]

if your seriously intrested in getting into macro photography then a dedicated macro lens would be the only way to go, however if you just want to give it a try then depending on what lenses you have some cheap tubes would be a good start.

I dont think i've ever tried using tubes with a zoom lens, only primes, so cant really say which lens would work best for macro,
I know tubes plus the nikon 50mm 1.8 works well and is a cheap macro set up.
another thing i forgot to mention was working distance, when using tubes your working distance (end of lens to sugject) is greatly reduced, for still life this is no problem however for insects and the like it can be a pain.

Im just an amateur so dont take my advice as fact, would be best to wait for a second opinion and do some homework to find out what set up would suit you best.