Sculpted Leaves by Canon DSLR Challenge

Canon DSLR Challenge | all galleries >> Challenge 69: Greyscale (host: Jim Harrison) >> Eligible > Sculpted Leaves


13-JUN-2006	Jim H.

Sculpted Leaves

The bugs did a great job on these leaves if you ask me.

Canon EOS 20D ,Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
1/400s f/5.6 at 20.0mm iso200 full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto

previous | next

Please do not delete, update, or otherwise edit others' entries
* Submitter retains all copyrights *

Canon DSLR Challenge		15-Jun-2006 23:43
Victor: Try my method of using a Christmas ornament as the sphere. They come in all sizes and by soaking them in warm, soapy water, the colored coatings on many of them simply falls off leaving a very nice silvered glass ball. You just have to keep the "snoot" of it aimed so that it isn't visible. I also think that new ball bearings would work well and that's what I originally had intended to use. Jonny: You're going to love that EF-S 60mm macro. I think that's my favorite all around lens for the 20D. It's a very nice portrait length and the optical characteristics are just outstanding.

Jonny Kopp		15-Jun-2006 10:39
Thanks Jim for the detailed explanation. Very intersesting. I recently got the efs 60/2.8 macro. Because I like macrophotography and try to learn it. I did not know that one could use the efs 10-22, that I got for landscapes, for macro stuff too. But your entries show how perfectly it can work.

Canon DSLR Challenge		15-Jun-2006 03:19
How quickly you forget, Jim. Remember your winning entry for challenge #64? I replied at the time that I've been wanting to try that technique myself for quite some time. The reason I've been wanting to try it was precisely to get good perspective macro shots without having to resort to tiny sensors and tiny lenses. OK. So maybe you didn't forget and simply hadn't thought of this application of your technique. Anyway, it's something I've been meaning for years, if not decades, to try. I just need to acquire an arsenal of reasonbly sized spheres, or similarly shaped objects. -- Victor

Canon DSLR Challenge		15-Jun-2006 00:32
I get pretty close with it. I often shoot with the focus ring turned all of the way as far as it'll go because I like the perspective one gets when the lens is very close to the subject. I actually wish I could get closer at times, but the filter on the lens (and I always keep one in place on this lens!) sometimes touches the subject. It wasn't for these two shots, but I've had it happen quite often. In the case of these leaves, the point where the three closest leaflets join at the stem is about where the "critical focus" was at, and the lens was probably set at or near its closest focus setting. The adjustment to 20mm was done to try to only get what I wanted into the background. The book states that the lens can focus down to 0.8 feet (0.24 meters) but if you stop things down, you can get a bit closer with acceptable sharpness. And those numbers (0.8 feet) are the distance from the "film plane" to the subject, so the actual lens-to-subject distance would be more like 3.5 to 4 inches. I love macro and I also love wide angle. I just noticed that the book talks about using an extension tube as well as a close-up lens with this lens. I wonder how that would work out? I don't have a large enough close-up lens to fit this thing (77mm) nor do I own any extension tubes. I might have to look into those possibilities. I think to really do macro with an extremely close-up perspective, one would need a very tiny camera with a tiny sensor and tiny lenses. I think that would be fun to play with. Jim H.

Jonny Kopp		14-Jun-2006 22:46
the previous entri of Jim H. with the title "pepper" ;-)

Canon DSLR Challenge		14-Jun-2006 22:21
What pepper? -- Victor

Jonny Kopp		14-Jun-2006 19:27
I am impressed by what you can do with your 10-22 WA. How close did you get to the leaves an the pepper?