extension tubes with macros for critters?

Alan Browne wrote:
Mark² wrote:

Annika1980 wrote:

is the use of extension tubes to get closer to the subjects a
viable option?

Yes.


is there a significant loss of optical performance?

No, only Depth of Field.

-And light loss.

Light isn't lost, just spread out more on the film so a longer
exposure is required.

;-)

Right.
I call that light loss.

Mark² wrote:

Put up yoru dukes, pal!

I see your dukes and I raise you three Earls, a viscount and a rather
bankrupt baron!




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"etosha" wrote in news:1140778442.111302.39690
@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Hi,

I'm going to Gabon for a month in the rainforest and I was wondering if
you could help me decide whether or not to buy a Kenko extension tube
set for my macro lenses. The gear to be used for close-up work is:

Minolta Dynax 9
Sigma EX 105/2.8
Sigma EX 180/3.5
Minolta 5400HS flash

others: Sigma EX 2x teleconverter, tripod, off-camera flash bracket

The 105/2.8 lens focuses to about 31cm but for some smaller critters
such as ants this is not enough, and to get in-yer-face pics of
caterpillar heads, for example, that simply is inadequate. So the
question is:

is the use of extension tubes to get closer to the subjects a viable
option?
is there a significant loss of optical performance?

help appreciated,
cheers,

Marko


Lots of little things in here. The 31cm distance is to the film
plane, and in reality, this will not change with extension. The front of
the lens will be able to get a few centimeters closer, but the kicker is
that the lens is moved much further from the body, so the image spreads
out more, like moving a slide projector further from the screen.

However, with all three Kenko tubes on either of those lenses, the
increase in magnification is probably not what you're hoping for. The
formula is to divide the extension into the focal length, and this
provides the increase in magnification.

So, take the 105mm at closest focus, 1:1 ratio (lifesize). Three
tubes - 12, 20, and 36mm - gives 68mm, divided into the 105. That gives
you 1.54:1, or one-and-a-half lifesize. And much less for the 180mm.

At the same time, you have to factor in the light loss (yes Alan,
it's a loss, regardless of nonsense semantics), reduced DOF usually
requiring a small aperture, and the lens being closer to your subject.

What you're likely to find is that, even with a tripod and macro
slider, on live subjects in situ, as it were, you are highly unlikely to
nail sharp focus, or produce a decent pic without motion blur because
you'll need a really long shutter speed. And that's if the subjects let
you get that close.

You can combine options for greater effect, and there's no good
formula for this. I've used macro lenses with a teleconverter *and*
extension tubes, and gotten some decent shots from it. Also worked with a
TC but no tubes, which produces a better magnification than all three
tubes, above. You can also use diopters with any of the above, but be
warned - you're severely testing the limits of degradation with such.

Your highest magnifications, however, are going to come with lens
reversing (mounting a lens directly on the camera body backwards) and
lens stacking (mounting a lens reversed on the front of a longer lens).
These produce some wickedly high magnifications, and at the cost of
producing DOF that can be measured in fractions of a millimeter. When
doing reversal work, you'll want a wider angle lens - 28 to 50mm, I
usually prefer 35mm. The reason is, you need to cover the film plane with
the image, so you need an angle of view (when used normally) that will
exceed the width of the film when reversed. Any kind of telephoto will
vignette badly - they're normally capturing a very narrow field.

Stacking works better with a smaller focal length reversed onto a
longer one - 50mm onto a 200mm, or more. Rear focal length divided by
front gives increase in magnfification, in this case 4:1 from a lens that
would normally be 1:1. Such a method requires very sharp and limited
distortion lenses, though, and you're likely to still crop the resulting
image to remove aberrations from the edges.

For both techniques, both camera and subject will have to be
totally motionless, you're probably going to want a cable/remote release
and mirror lockup, and lighting becomes a royal pain in the ass. This is
primarily "studio" work rather than field work. The "studio" might be a
camp table in the woods somewhere, but basically, you're going to need to
rigidly control the conditions, and forget about snagging the subject as
it goes about its business. The benefit of this is, your studio
background can be a twig or a leaf - absolutely nothing else is going to
be even slightly in focus (though avoid specular highlights).

To that end, you may want to consider taking along collecting
bottles (film cans, whatever) full of alcohol to pickle the best
subjects, and posing them as needed. Not exactly a non-intervention
practice, but then again, your presence there defeats that, and you're
probably crushing hundreds when you walk and sit down ;-)

Additionally, if you're looking to identify them afterwards,
producing the specimen is quite likely your only hope - identifying
species, even by trained entomologists, often requires seeing things your
photos simply do not show. And you'll have the chance to redo the shots
in better conditions if needed.

Hope this helps. Good luck, and enjoy your trip!


- Al.

--
To reply, insert dash in address to match domain below
Online photo gallery at www.wading-in.net

Al Denelsbeck wrote:

At the same time, you have to factor in the light loss (yes Alan,
it's a loss, regardless of nonsense semantics), reduced DOF usually

Humor impariment tuneup due, Al.

To that end, you may want to consider taking along collecting
bottles (film cans, whatever) full of alcohol to pickle the best
subjects, and posing them as needed.

Dude, that's just WRONG!

The whole fun of shooting macro is the challenge of it. It is damn
hard to get those little critters in focus while they go about their
business. Your technique would be like shooting wildlife by taking
pictures of deer heads on someone's wall.

Al Denelsbeck wrote:

To that end, you may want to consider taking along collecting
bottles (film cans, whatever) full of alcohol to pickle the best
subjects, and posing them as needed. Not exactly a non-intervention
practice, but then again, your presence there defeats that, and you're
probably crushing hundreds when you walk and sit down ;-)

Are you serious?
Surely you must realize that a huge degree of authenticity and reward is
lost when you kill the subject, and then artifically pose it while dead.

Do you find equal enjoyment in viewing pictures of dead insects/animals
compared with live specimens in their natural habitat?
I don't, and certainly find no joy in the process of photographing stuffed
animals/pickled bugs.

"Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest even number wrote in
news:3wpMf.1693$Uc2.1537@fed1read04:

Al Denelsbeck wrote:

To that end, you may want to consider taking along collecting
bottles (film cans, whatever) full of alcohol to pickle the best
subjects, and posing them as needed. Not exactly a non-intervention
practice, but then again, your presence there defeats that, and
you're probably crushing hundreds when you walk and sit down ;-)

Are you serious?
Surely you must realize that a huge degree of authenticity and reward
is lost when you kill the subject, and then artifically pose it while
dead.

Do you find equal enjoyment in viewing pictures of dead
insects/animals compared with live specimens in their natural habitat?
I don't, and certainly find no joy in the process of photographing
stuffed animals/pickled bugs.



What you need to ask, of all the photographers you see, is how
authentic the conditions are in which they shoot. You're probably
going to be pretty disappointed.

Photography makes no pretense of authenticity. Instead, it serves
to record an image. That's all. What you derive from it is your own.
And all too often, the photographer contrives to help you along with
that.

In the event of extremely high magnification shots, looking at
details of mandibles, spiracles, and so on, you're highly unlikely
to get that "in the wild". Period. Try it sometime. You'll waste a
lot of time doing it, and probably won't have much to show, except
some very large patches of missing hair ;-)

Meanwhile, the guy that shot from a dead subject makes the sale,
because the editor or publisher needed to see the detail for the
article on antennas. Nothing more.

Don't get me wrong - I maintain a pretty strict non-intervention
policy with regards to wildlife. I also was an active rehabilitator
in the past, served on two committees for rehab programs, wrote
several of the manuals for training rehabilitators, and provide
routine advice for wildlife issues in my position now. I don't
believe in depredation live-trapping, much less hunting for any
reason whatsoever, and insist that habitats can not only be shared,
we upset a pretty serious balance when we refuse to do so.

Stop by an entomologist's office sometime, though. What you're
going to find is lots and lots of dead bugs. And that's because
there's a distinct limit to how much you can glean from a live
specimen in a natural habitat. The various denizens of the "bug"
world (because someone is bound to pedantically correct me if I lump
everything together as "insects") outnumber all other species
combined by a pretty signifcant factor, and get trashed by the
millions every day by automobiles, chemicals (including
photochemicals), airliners as people travel to "unspoiled" spots,
power plants that run everyone's computer, and yes, by simply
walking on them blindly.

And then, for the philosophically logical, there's also the
argument that we're not exactly an introduced species on this
planet, so everything we do is also perfectly "natural", just as
much as a bird choking down lacewings by the hundreds each night. Or
you can go with the various religious arguments that maintain that
god put all these species here for our own benefit anyway ;-)

(It probably should be noted that these are both arguments I avoid
when speaking with people on wildlife issues, since providing anyone
with easy justification for depredation actions isn't the best
approach when you're aiming for cohabitation).

Everyone chooses their own level of comfort. If you prefer to shoot
bugs in strict field conditions, go for it - I'm not making anyone
do anything else. I do enough field shots, and tabletop
habitats as well, and have a new one in the starting stages for this
Spring.

But if you think what you're seeing in nature photography is all
"authentic" and strictly natural, you're being naive.


- Al.

--
To reply, insert dash in address to match domain below
Online photo gallery at www.wading-in.net

Al Denelsbeck wrote:
"Mark²" mjmorgan(lowest even number wrote in
news:3wpMf.1693$Uc2.1537@fed1read04:

Al Denelsbeck wrote:

To that end, you may want to consider taking along collecting
bottles (film cans, whatever) full of alcohol to pickle the best
subjects, and posing them as needed. Not exactly a non-intervention
practice, but then again, your presence there defeats that, and
you're probably crushing hundreds when you walk and sit down ;-)

Are you serious?
Surely you must realize that a huge degree of authenticity and reward
is lost when you kill the subject, and then artifically pose it while
dead.

Do you find equal enjoyment in viewing pictures of dead
insects/animals compared with live specimens in their natural
habitat? I don't, and certainly find no joy in the process of
photographing stuffed animals/pickled bugs.



What you need to ask, of all the photographers you see, is how
authentic the conditions are in which they shoot. You're probably
going to be pretty disappointed.

If I use myself as an example, I disagree...but you will find every
immaginable technique out there, I'm sure.
While I've had my fun snapping at the zoo from time to time, I find very
little joy in it...and when I do it, I identify the setting (as on my Pbase
pages).

Photography makes no pretense of authenticity. Instead, it serves
to record an image. That's all. What you derive from it is your
own. And all too often, the photographer contrives to help you
along with that.

Not this photographer...or Bret...so who are you talking to?


In the event of extremely high magnification shots, looking at
details of mandibles, spiracles, and so on, you're highly unlikely
to get that "in the wild". Period. Try it sometime. You'll waste a
lot of time doing it, and probably won't have much to show, except
some very large patches of missing hair ;-)

There are exceptions in every field.

Meanwhile, the guy that shot from a dead subject makes the sale,
because the editor or publisher needed to see the detail for the
article on antennas. Nothing more.

Don't get me wrong - I maintain a pretty strict non-intervention
policy with regards to wildlife. I also was an active rehabilitator
in the past, served on two committees for rehab programs, wrote
several of the manuals for training rehabilitators, and provide
routine advice for wildlife issues in my position now. I don't
believe in depredation live-trapping, much less hunting for any
reason whatsoever, and insist that habitats can not only be shared,
we upset a pretty serious balance when we refuse to do so.

Stop by an entomologist's office sometime, though. What you're
going to find is lots and lots of dead bugs.

Of course. And guess what? You would never find me setting up my tripod to
take a picture of their dead bugs.

And that's because
there's a distinct limit to how much you can glean from a live
specimen in a natural habitat. The various denizens of the "bug"
world (because someone is bound to pedantically correct me if I
lump everything together as "insects") outnumber all other species
combined by a pretty signifcant factor, and get trashed by the
millions every day by automobiles, chemicals (including
photochemicals), airliners as people travel to "unspoiled" spots,
power plants that run everyone's computer, and yes, by simply
walking on them blindly.

And then, for the philosophically logical, there's also the
argument that we're not exactly an introduced species on this
planet, so everything we do is also perfectly "natural", just as
much as a bird choking down lacewings by the hundreds each night.
Or you can go with the various religious arguments that maintain
that god put all these species here for our own benefit anyway ;-)

I'd like to tell that to the environmental extremists who bark at me if I
try to take a picture of the seals in La Jolla...who have taken over the
man-made children's pool (La Jolla cove). They seem to think the seals will
explode into a million pieces if they so much as look at me when I'm near
them. They equate ANY movement in relation to a human being as
"harrassment!" -And I'm not kidding. Ridiculous.

(It probably should be noted that these are both arguments I avoid
when speaking with people on wildlife issues, since providing
anyone with easy justification for depredation actions isn't the
best approach when you're aiming for cohabitation).

There will always be idiots whe carry thing too far on both sides. I love
animals, and hunt only with my camera. For me, that's half the fun...and
BTW--capturing a quality shot of ANY animal is FAR more difficult that
shooting it. I'm not opposed to controlled hunting, but would simply
rather "shoot" with my camera instead of my guns (which I do like to target
shoot with).

Everyone chooses their own level of comfort. If you prefer to shoot
bugs in strict field conditions, go for it - I'm not making anyone
do anything else. I do enough field shots, and tabletop
habitats as well, and have a new one in the starting stages for
this Spring.

But if you think what you're seeing in nature photography is all
"authentic" and strictly natural, you're being naive.

I'm talking only about what I'm talking about.
No topic of conversation can withstand every tangential exception one wishes
to hurl into a conversation...


-Mark

"etosha" vehemently accused in
ups.com:

Hi,

I'm going to Gabon for a month in the rainforest and I was
wondering if
you could help me decide whether or not to buy a Kenko extension
tube
set for my macro lenses. The gear to be used for close-up work
is:

Minolta Dynax 9
Sigma EX 105/2.8
Sigma EX 180/3.5
Minolta 5400HS flash

others: Sigma EX 2x teleconverter, tripod, off-camera flash
bracket

The 105/2.8 lens focuses to about 31cm but for some smaller
critters
such as ants this is not enough, and to get in-yer-face pics of
caterpillar heads, for example, that simply is inadequate. So the
question is:

is the use of extension tubes to get closer to the subjects a
viable
option?
is there a significant loss of optical performance?

help appreciated,
cheers,

Marko


In my experience, yes, but I have not used bellows nor true
macro lenses, even just to compare them to extension tubes.
I've used the Kenko 3pc set (and a 12mm Canon, too) with my
Canon EOS (Rebel 2000 for years, now a 1N), a mix of
indoor/outdoor, but only occasionally on moving things (spiderwebs
& flowers in the wind, butterflies, etc.). My usual lens is
Canon's 50mm 1.8; I've recently tried a 2x extender (3rd party),
which has the advantage of being able to stand further back, but
the disadvantage of poorer quality (inherent in extenders, but
especially in 2x vs. 1.4x, from what I've heard, so that's my bad).
Some observations from using Kenko (& Canon) extension tubes:
--Autofocus is not an option. In fact, you'll generally need to
move the body to focus at all, ie., set focus on max or min then
move the body until you get the (very limited) DoF you want. The
min vs. max will give you some intersting differences in
magnification. The need to move the whole camera is an annoyance
when using a tripod, but might not be so bad if you're shooting
handheld. (I don't, 'cuz I'm not steady-handed enough, especially
macro).
--TTL should give you correct exposure, but your viewfinder image
will be dimmer, and your DoF preview will be very dim; the light
loss is very significant, also making for longer exposures, which
can be problematic if you shoot stopped-down for better DoF.
--The extender has another advantage, namely that you may be able
to stand far enough away that your hotshoe flash may be useful:
popups won't do anything if you're at true macro distance (except
maybe cast an odd shadow), and even hotshoe is generally all but
useless. I have NOT invested in a ringlight yet, though that is a
goal.
In my experience, I get the most out of extension tubes when I
use a tripod. For flowers or spiderwebs in the breeze that's not
so bad, once the wind dies, or even taking a couple frames on the
move to get different DoF.
Experiment, have fun, and with just a little practice I bet
you'll get shots you love.
Willa