Macrophotography Setup

Cool…didn’t realize your using a reverse…or is this just "one" setup? or no object’ attached? Bellows from an enlarger??

Cool setup, looks sturdy!!

Oh hey, I just noticed the date on this pic’…is this correct?

Nope, the date is not correct, I saw that a little while ago and thought about mentioning that it’s incorrect.

The photo was just taken today.

Reversing old primes seems to be the way to go with macrophotography. Also, the bellows is great as it allows many different magnifications.

what an awesome capture.congrats

Thanks for the great information/explanation and the accompanying image. I wouldn’t know where to start trying to make my own, but it’s still interesting to read about — and of course, your photos are amazing!

How do you keep your reversed lens from flaring? I’ve been having difficulty with this.

Wow… must be pretty scary for a 1.5mm bug to have this beast hovering over it! It’s no wonder all of those jumping-spiders are staring at you in your pictures: "Eeek! What the hell’s that?!"

Is this how the bellows is designed to be used – it has a standard camera body / lens bayonet fitting at one end, and a thread at the other end that matches standard front-of-lens filter threads?

What sort of movement on the bellows is possible, and what’s the effect of moving it from one extreme to the other?

I’ve never seen a set-up like this before… just curious

Cool Setup, How many stops override do you use on your flash?

Are there also Nikon F mount lenses that you can attach reverted? I love your spider pictures, how far away from your lens are they usually?

Felicitaciones

i was wondering how u did it lol… good stuff

Copleys- That’s how it is designed to be used, more or less. The end attached to the camera is a normal Pentax lens mount, and the front end mimics the camera body mount so you can mount lenses to the end. It’s basically like a variable extension tube.

The farther the farther away the lens is from the body, the more magnification. The bellows moves forward and backwards along the rail via a knob on its left side.

I also have the lens mounted backwards (which adds even more magnification) by using a lens reversing ring (it has a lens mount on one side and the other is threaded and you add it to the front of the lens like you would a filter, then just simply mount the lens backward.)

Bass Head- I know nothing about flashes, I’m just happy if it fires.

Karel F.- Check ebay, there is everything made for everything when it comes to cameras. As for the distance from my camera to the spiders, I’m not sure. It’s quite close though, maybe a few centimeters?

Magníficas las fotos que haces con este invento.

Man, those Vivitar flashes are great. I’ve got a 285… it’s cheap and simple. And works perfectly.

very interesting…thanks for sharing!

Nice
you are the first one I see using a pentax =)

Thanks for that explanation.

Thanks for a very informative explanation.
Your macro shots are amazing.

Wow!!! This makes me want to say dirty things.. Way cool

Cool… That’s really interesting Thanks for it.

Thanks again for this, I am inspired by your work and now have collected everything, the Minolta rail etc and some MD lenses to go out and have fun trying to duplictae your great works with my Sony A700. This is exciting and brings back those days as a kid impatiently waiting at Christmas to open a gift.

Love it when people are prepared to share info re their set-up and how they go about taking their photos. Shows great genorosity and confidence in a persons own ability. These are brilliant photos you take. Cheers.

This giant looks cool, am new to photog so still unable to understand what is the function of the below. May I know how heavy it is?

I use a similar setup: exact same Vivitar flash for which I have made many DIY gizmos, 2X extension tube & 2X multiplier for use with either Nikkor 55 micro or 105 f2.8.

Your bellows offers more versatility.

I just stumbled across your page on a link from DIYP and it has inspired me to head out to my yard for some flower & bee shots. Thanks

wish one day I could take macros like yours..but it really requires a complicated setup..

hello Opo, i have been looking thru ur stream. wonderful images! its a real delight to view your pictures. Well done!

I am a complete novice at macro and this image has been very informative, thank you. If it’s not too much to ask – can you explain why you have a bellows AND a 2x teleconverter? would it not be possible to use just the bellows and the lens? If so, would you NEED to flip the lens over? could u please expain the reason behind this particular sequence u use?

thanks!
–
Seen on your photo stream. (?)

khanster- Thanks for the compliments.

The 2x teleconverter is not necessary and I have actually only used the setup as shown for maybe one or two photos here. As shown here provides quite a lot of magnification, probably past 10:1 or so.

When I do use the bellows (which is becoming less and less) I usually mount only the 28mm reversed. Reversing a lens provides greater magnification.

For the majority of my photos recently, I have been using the 2x teleconverter mounted directly to the body and the 28mm reversed to the teleconverter. Also, sometimes I just reverse the 28mm to the body alone. I think just the 28mm reversed is 3:1.

thank you Opo, that is very helpful.. flickr needs more honest photographers like yourself who are willing to share expertise!

cheers,
–
Seen in my recent comments. (?)

Thank you for this very intersting technical discussion.
The resuting pictures are very impressive !

I have a few additionnal questions :
- do you use a tripod or any other stabilizing device ?
- at this magnification, it seems that one of the most difficult points are to get the focus. How do you deal with this problem ?

Gilles San Martin- Thanks.

-No tripod, I need to be able to move freely from place to place and have the camera in bizarre positions/angles.

-Focus is indeed my biggest problem. I just take lots and lots of photos (I would say 3/4ths of my photos are useless) and if I get one in focus, I use that one.

Thanks for the precision and to take time to share your experience (I’ve seen that you had so many visits last days…).

I’ve seen that you sometimes use focus stacking. I thought it was only possible with a tripod and with dedicated softwares. It seems that you manage to do that without tripod but with manual stacking in photoshop.
I supose that this manual stacking is the key to manage this but the technical knowledge requirement (and the time to spend !) are probably high.

Cheers
Gilles

Super! Thanks for sharing!

Awesome setup…and all your shots really rock! Really impressive!

wow! a real one to shoot macro…thanks for sharing

It’s amazing how can you make this wonderful photos. I have a Pentax ist DL too, so i’m stunned about the things it could do that I’ve never imagined. Congrazt for yours beautiful photos and such a good work!

wow! thanks for sharing your setup I didn’t think about reversing the lens love the goldfish diffuser

OMG … absolutely fantastic machine! Amazing tuned photocam … excellent ! Pfff …

I no longer feel bad that my photos don’t look anywhere near as good as yours. (I’m not a photographer, bot be clear, but even then I’m just learning). But your photos are amazing–I found you when trying to identify a dragonfly (with green eyes).

Inspiring, beautiful, creepy, interesting, fabulous . . . work!

the setup is great i never thought of using a belows with a reversed prime.
is it too dark to shoot with a reverse+belows?

kazer_x10- It’s very, very dark. The setup as shown is almost impossible to use, though this photo was taken with the setup above.

Lately I haven’t been using the bellows. I have just been using the 28mm reversed to some extension tubes.

c’est fou!!!

Thanks for sharing your setup. All your efforts have certainly paid off in amazing photos.

This is fantastic, thank you for sharing all this with us.

I have a question if I may; how close do you have to get to the subject with the set up above?

what a set ! i’m actually thinkin in selling my canon 100mm macro and kenko tubes to get into reversed macro lenses.

It must be really hard to catch some insects without having a good working distance.
Which lenses do you think that give better working distance?
Does a 2x Teleconverter gives you more working distance?

Superb set up…and the results are even better!!! Keep them coming, probably some of the best insect macros in flickr!!!

whathever you use… you are the best!
you are a real artist!
i hated spiders, and now i am interrested by them and your photos are so beautiful and some times so funny that i can tell you thank you!!!

Thanks for taking the time to share this with us. Do you use something like CombineZM too?

This setup picture is really cool, and I have fallen in love with your macro-shots! I’ll do some more reading on the subject of revers mounting of lenses, and do some serious macro’s of my own (in a long time to come) inspired by you!

These pictures are colourful, did you use software to deal with them?

Nice setup

Thanks for taking the time to explain. Great images BTW.

I’ve tried a similar setup with a reversed 50mm f1.4 screwmount takumar and a 28mm f3.5 screw mount takumar, but got LOTS of flare when closed down anymore than f5.6. A reversed modern nikkor 50mm f1.8 works just fine, since the rear element has flare coatings. Just thought I’d put this out to those who want to try reversed primes. Apparently some of the older vintage lenses flare a lot. Bayonet takumars work well, it seems.

thanks man, this has given me a totally different direction to macro photography. never realized you could use prime lens’ in this manner… truly amazing work!!

Hi, I’m an admin for a group called Camera GROUP, and we’d love to have this added to the group!

Impressive photostream! Congratulations and thank you for sharing your expertise!

Amazing photos and thank you so much for sharing your set up with us all!

Regards,
john

Amazing setup & photographs!
Would like to see more of your photos

great stuff, STUNNING pictures man

That is a SWEET setup. Love your disposition to share.

Great- thank you for sharing!

ciao

Interesting. It must be very heavy but the results are so beautiful that I will follow your work regularly

I do not believe that you shot on live animals. However, very good photos.

Ricky 79- I’m not going to lie – I’m a little bit offended that you think I shoot dead bugs.

I promise you every animal you see in my photostream is in good health and quite alive unless I specifically state that it is not (and I can only think of 1 photo that falls in that category).

I obviously enjoy arthropods quite a bit and would never intentionally harm one just to get a good photo.

Feel as you want, that’s only an opinion of mine.
To obtain that type of DOF on a such macro photo using focus stack you need to manually adjust the focus or to move your subject rear and forward (or the entire system) for more than 2-3 times, operations that require "a lot" of time, regarding the time scale of a little animal. I can’t believe that an insect or arthropode may be so steady all that time… it has to be sleeping. Or other (dry ice?)… IMHO.

Feel as you want

He’s not "feeling" that way. He stated it as a fact . That you still don’t believe him… well, just smacks of bad manners.

As for being able to get the shots w/o harming the critters, I never once thought they were dead. I just consider it skill when someone knows how to use their camera properly.

Thanks Fried Toast.

Ricky 79, I’m glad you aren’t just accepting my photography blindly, and of course you can think whatever you want, but I really wish I could physically show you how much time and effort goes into the taking of these photographs. It’s often an incredibly painstaking process just to get any photos at all of these little guys. My success comes solely from the large amount of photos I take and my experience with macrophotography.

The thing that many people may not understand initially is that these bugs are not "steady all the time" as you put it. I literally spends hours and hours each day photographing bugs, and I often get nothing at all. I took 182 photos of just one spider recently over a period of about 4 hours – and I maybe got less than 10 good photos of him.

There is no trickery involved in my photography – just extreme patience and perseverance. I have to understand the behaviour of the arthropods, how to approach them, how they will react to the flash etc, etc…

With such a long period in following setup, how can you perform focus stack with all the system in your hand?

don’t think I’m bothering, I am highly critic because I’m highly interested with your technique…

Ricky, you’ll notice many of Opo’s subjects are jumping spiders. Take some time to observe these animals. You’ll find that since they are ambush predators, they can hold still for long periods of time, moving only in short occassional bursts. This makes them ideal for super close macros, and it’s very possible to shoot them with Opo’s settup. When shooting with so much magnification, you don’t even need to turn the focus ring on your lens. By using a technique I like to call "creep", you slowly and patiently ease close to the spider or insect so not to spook them. With such shallow DOF, creeping in like this is enough to get the accurate focus you need. With steady hands, proper breathing technique, and a whole lot of patience, Opo get’s these great shots on live creatures.

About focus stacking, it’s definitely optimal to use more than three shots, but three shots will do. It just requires some post processing.

-Nick

Ricky – I encourage your interest in how I take these shots! Not too many folks question exactly how I take these shots – most just want to know what equipment I use.

To answer your question – I’m strong, I have steady hands, I take a lot of photos, and I often steady/support myself on nearby objects to achieve the same angle between photos.

Another thing: the setup seen in the image above I have actually only used once or twice – it’s much too heavy, cumbersome and powerful for most macro applications. I usually use a much lighter and easier to use setup for the majority of my photography. I’m planning on posting a photo and explanation of it all sometime soon.

—————————————————————————————

Nick – Exactly. The true key to getting such high magnification shots of live animals is understanding, recognizing and being familiar with their behaviour. It takes time, but like anything difficult – it’s quite rewarding!

This is crazy!!! I love it … One thing that’s not clear to me has to do with the focal length of the reversed lens… the wider the lens the more magnification it gives if reversed, or the opposite?

can u tell me what 28mm lens is best to macro ?
and what lens u ussualy use

pentax smc 28 2.8
and 50 1.7

correct ?

Hi, I’m an admin for a group called Cartel – Photo Graphic ( No Plants or Humans or Biologicals ), and we’d love to have this added to the group!

I believe your 3:1 ratio for straight 28 reversed may be wrong according to this

http://www.nikonlinks.com/unklbil/macro_adapter.htm#reversing

course with converter its 4x?….and bellows added u should be able to define the bugs blood type lol

very nice setup and for years i used a 24 and 35 prime reversed but here in the Philippines just into my 105 micro so far. All my reversed pics are on film but expect much better results through digital in the DOF department. I really love the 35 reversed at 1.5:1 for flowers.

Anyway your work is astounding to say the least…cheers

Thanks for sharing, Opo.

Ever think of making a hood-like adapter ring for your reversed lens? I made one last year. It’s really convenient for outdoor shooting.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wkwoo/3107437593/

Amazinnnngggggggggg

I saw a link posted to your photos from a Twitter update via LightStalking. I got the update at work and spent far too much work time looking through your amazing photographs. I figured this photo would be a good one to comment on for a your-entire-flickrstream-is-awesome type comment.
So…..Your entire flickrstream is awesome!
Thanks also for being so giving in describing how your work is done. Showing the techniques and equipment, like the above, is really good of you.
Interestingly, I think I have the exact same vintage flash in my supplies!

I do not have words to describe your photostream, my mouth hangs open in awe, and I am just gob-smacked.

I do not know how well you know Canon lenses, but which one would you recommend for me to someday achieve near similar results?

50mm f1.4
50mm f1.8
28mm f2.8
35mm f2.0

What would happen if I turned my EFS 60mm f2.8 macro lens around?

Thanks for sharing.

thanks for the info, i get to know u from the MSNBC interview
U shoot really beautiful macro

Kobus: check out the MP-E 65mm from Canon

Thomas: thanks for sharing all the fascinating images and your set-up.

I have no words just Amazing !

Excellent use of affordable vintage equipment, and your superb macro photos certainly show the capabilities of this setup. Great!

amazing pictures! Amazing combination of hardware

awesome camera rig (very inventive and inspiring)

Fantastico parabens!!!

I just found your photostream (via Wired.com), and I’m blown away by your macro photography. I went flipping through your pictures hoping I’d find one like this, and my jaw dropped when I saw it.
I spent my money on the best camera I could afford, a very expensive macro lens, state-of-the-art flash, and wireless flash sync.. and now I am very humbled by seeing what you can produce with such a simple setup.

Wonderful work and thanks for sharing your setup and expertise. I’m inspired to get myself a reversing ring and try my hand

So this is how it’s done. Very generous of you to share your secrets!

You showed that a reversed lens is awesome for photography. Oh well, I’ll content myself with my 60mm and 105mm!

Thomas,
Indeed and extraordinary piece of work I must say. You have practiced yourself to perfection. Hats Off.

essa que é a poderosa das macros?

Hi Thomas is this still your current setup?

valla que equipo mas interesante. ya veo de donde viene la magia de tus fotografias…. jejejeje

hi there!

this is excellent! thanks so much to contributing to the collective creativity of us all by sharing this info! i’ve wanted to shoot macro for ages but couldn’t afford a lens, now i can without having to buy one!

one question: do you worry about protecting the front [actually back] of the lens? i’m a klutz and i would worry about whacking the lens on stuff without a filter to protect it. i suppose i would attach another reversing ring to the thing and add a filter. perhaps an expensive way to go about fixing the problem, but less expensive than having to buy a new lens…

cool , i like your style man

**Please add this to the group Camera Setup **

thanks for your explanations and inspirational imagery.

Duc tape rules! The bug shots are bitchen for sure, but I’m favoriting this one. Nice work Thomas. Glad I found you. Plus, I’ve been wanting to pull the trigger on a Nikon bellows, but have holding out for some reason. This set of pics puts me over the top. I’m getting one now for sure.

Cheers, and good show!!

Thank you for sharing your setup, I just found this! Keep them coming! Youre very generous to share!+

Awesome work!!!

For years I have wanted to try macro photography using reversed lenses, but never did since film was so expensive. Now that I have digital, it is way more cost effective to try this again. Thanks for sharing this, you have inspired me to make the attempt!

Wow! Thanks for sharing your hard earned expertise! Truly inspiring!

Wow, great home made gear!

Great info, and insight into how you capture such great images.
Well done!

Its like something taken out of Star Wars

i really wish i knew enough about cameras to make this kind of setup

Hi Thomas…I really like your macro shots and how easy you communicate the complex world of macro photography. With my limited funds I took the theory behind extension tubes and came up with two macro set-up versions.

One gets more extreme macros by using a piece of plumbing pipe as an extension tube and a 30 year old 50mm lens:

And the other set-up I used a manual extension tube…drilled a hole and inserted a pin so that it engages my 70-300mm Nikon aperture lever on the lens to move it to approximately F:8.

I use a flash set-up on manual, camera on manual and generally have my settings at F:8, ISO 200, 1/1,000 Shutter speed. What I like about this last set-up with my long zoom is that I can take macro from about 5 feet away or as close as 4".

I am enjoying your work but even more appreciate your willingness to share information. This is not easy to do and unless you have tried to get macro/bug shots you can’t begin to understand how difficult this is. That being said….it is a blast to get those precious shots right…it’s all in the challenge!

You should post this image again on some of the groups to get photographers thinking about macro. I found this image the hard way….through Google!

Cheers!
Pat.

Tremendo!!! Felicidades Thomas, me encantan tus fotografias!