Tag Archives: Macro

4 From Bob Venezia

by Bob Venezia
4 From Bob Venezia

4 From Bob Venezia

Timing was very unfortunate this year. I blame the Coronavirus. I received 2 folios within days of my state being identified as one of the world’s hotspots. The problem was compounded when several of my coworkers were ordered home because of potential exposures to the virus. For a while I was doing the work of 5 people. Even though by now there are 4 of us doing the work of 5, I’ve still been working long hours and not getting enough rest.

Sorry to have held onto the folio for so long. I’ll try to add some context to the photos in the coming days.

Skydiver is among my all-time favorite carnival ride shots. It’s the only time I captured the intermittent movement of this ride while it was loading. (My other captures of the ride show a more boring seamless disk when the ride was in full motion.

Photographers Playground is a slight hyperstereo shot at Bryce Canyon. At the time I was cursing these people who were messing up my nature shot. But clearly I ‘m an idiot, as you can see that they make the shot. Shot with Hasselblads at about 18 inches separation.

Fireworks (Sorry, I’ve already sent off the folio and don’t remember the exact title) is another of my hyper shots with forty feet separation.

And Edison Advances is shot with twin Hasselblads in a macrobox with a beamsplitter.

Edison In Repose

by Bob Venezia

Edison in repose

Our cat Edison abiding on a comfy chair.

There have been numerous entries playing with camera distance from subject, and with varying results. I love the idea of getting in close, but I would want to limit the depth of the scene so my background wouldn’t be difficult to fuse. Some years back I purchased a macro box from master 3D photographer John Hart of Colorado. At the time I was using it with my digital cameras, but it’s mostly sat around unused. Last year I decided to have a go with the Hasselblads. I was happy enough with the results, but the whole setup was a total PITA to use. Trying to get both cameras to the same settings, focus them both, capture an image, and then wind them for the next image (without knocking them out of focus or position in a cramped macro box) was an exercise in frustration. Plus there was a lot of experimentation with flash sync. Anyway, I do have an example of using the setup to capture a portrait of our cat Edison.

I do plan to continue this pursuit, but it will involve rebuilding the macro box to accommodate two motorized Hasselblads that can be triggered wirelessly

This was shot with flashes. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fan of the strobist blog. If you are interested in learning about using portable flash units, go there and start with Lighting 101. I can’t recommend it enough.

I like the eyes and whiskers of course but I especially love the hairs in Eddie’s ears. They remind me of fireworks trails.

Bird Fetish Carving Native New Mexican

by Geoffrey S. Waldo
Native American Fetish Carving

Native American Fetish Carving

This was done using a segmented mirror beam splitter box and a Sigma DP3 Merrill, with a front 3 diopter 72 mm diameter achromat for extra magnification. This little carving is only 1-1/4″ tall. I bought it from a Native American artist in Albuquerque from the State Fair 2006. I am looking for his name, but can’t find the receipt. If I find it I will update the post. This was done with a ring flash held off-camera (up and to the left). with a black velvet background. You can see the plastic base the carving was resting on. The lower left photo is the mirrorbox with the top off. The two first surface mirrors direct  the left and right halves of the camera frame along axes that give a 12 mm stereobase. Stereophotomaker corrects the slight keystone distortion nicely. Its made from 1/4″ ABS sheet solvent welded. The lower left face of the cube has a filter mount for screwing on AR filter and accessory lenses, the right face has a filter mount with adapter which accepts the Merrill DP3. Knobs allow the filter ring to be loosened to align the camera with horizontal plane of the macrobox. The macro mirrorbox is essentially treated as a “lens”. It hangs off the Merrill, which has a nice strong snoot. The right image shows the rig in use. The camera is mounted to the Benro Angel tripod with ARCA plate…from this vantage point, the mirrorbox is hidden by the flash power supply at the top. The accessoy lens and ring flash are on the left facing face of the cube. The subject here is a sprig of pinon stuck in an old 120 takeup spool. I’ll convert that image to film. Have some nice macro shots with this rig, just getting used to it.

ALSO: I will look at moving back or using focus stacking to increase DOF so the entire subject is sharp.

Beamsplitter top off Beam splitter in use