Post your critters & plants under the macro lens

[Heroique]

Here’s an autumn leaf (Big Leaf Maple) rescued from the sidewalk and brought home for a carefully controlled tripod shot, 35mm and LF. About 1:1.5 and a full-frame scan. It’s a natural light shot from a nearby curtained window. I think the tiny, non-planar segments helped create the specular highlights. A polarizer may have rendered a very different look and feel.



Nikon FM3a
Tamron 180mm/3.5 macro lens
Fuji Velvia-50
Aperture priority: < 2 sec. @ f/16 (effective f/22-f/32)
Nikon Coolscan V ED/Nikon Scan

[Iga]

Not real macro, but very close...
Hand made meniscus lens, HP5 film

[Iga]

As above

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

A very beautiful picture. It inspires. It also makes me think a bit of Scorcese and Visconti films ("The Age of Innocence", "Il Gattopardo"). There, the - mostly colored - shadows also remain very dark, but not black, which gives them potential to become even darker, absolutely black, or lighter. And the highlights fade into bright white, but only in a few places, so the actual lights are mostly darker than white. Which points to the light source. A really very bright but diffuse light that envelops the objects in the shadows, despite the prevailing darkness. Probably with 4x5 and macro you just come to the solution of using a flash at some point.

HRU Makiflex Std Mic-X 240 f4.5 Tele-Arton by Nokton48, on Flickr

Plaubel Makiflex Standard camera 240mm F5.5 chrome barrel mount Schneider Tele-Arton at F22. One pop of Broncolor Pulso C171 monolight strobe with Broncolor Pulso Beauty Dish. No fill. 8x10 Fuji HR-U XRay film cut into 4x5s straight Microdol-X replenished in a tray development by inspection under custom red light. 4x5 Lisco Regal holder. 8x10 RC Aristo #2 Multigrade dev Omega DII with diffusion Omegalite head.

[Daniel Unkefer]

A very beautiful picture. It inspires. It also makes me think a bit of Scorcese and Visconti films ("The Age of Innocence", "Il Gattopardo"). There, the - mostly colored - shadows also remain very dark, but not black, which gives them potential to become even darker, absolutely black, or lighter. And the highlights fade into bright white, but only in a few places, so the actual lights are mostly darker than white. Which points to the light source. A really very bright but diffuse light that envelops the objects in the shadows, despite the prevailing darkness. Probably with 4x5 and macro you just come to the solution of using a flash at some point.

Thank you for your kind comments Daniel! This was fun and relaxing to do, and I have plans to continue to photograph flowers both outside and in my studio.

[Daniel Unkefer]

4x5 Fuji HRU Mic-X 5 minutes by Nokton48, on Flickr

Fuji 8x10 HR-U X-Ray cut down to 4x5, Graphmatic Holder, 4x5 Sinar Norma 180mm f5.6 chrome Durst Componon lens, full key sun. This was exposure #6, two stops over ambient reading of grey card EI 50 TTL Sinarsix 1/15 @ Fll. Short development is stock Legacy Mic-X 5 minutes 68F. Cesco flat bottomed 8x10 tray, sheets developed singly. I did a sort of ring-around, varying exposure and development times. This is the lowest contrast version which I like. 8x10 Arista RC #2 Multigrade dev Omega DII with Omegalite circuline head

[Daniel Unkefer]

Darkroom Print 1 Makiflex by Nokton48, on Flickr

My first darkroom print in twenty five years. Plaubel Makiflex, 270mm Tele Arton, 4x5" Efke PL100, ADOX Borax MQ Developer. Entire 9x9cm neg printed full frame. Ilford Multigrade Print Developer, RC #2 Arista paper

[6X17 Shooter]

Canon 5D2 with Mamiya M645 120/4 Macro

[Maris Rusis]

Sedge and Oxygen Bubbles, Alexandria Bay
Gelatin-silver photograph on Ultrafine Silver Eagle VC FB photographic paper, image size 16.3cm X 21.5cm, from a Tmax 400 negative
exposed in a Mamiya RB67 camera fitted with a single element meniscus lens and #25 red filter.

[jon.oman]

Yay, macro, I've got 1000s of 'em



Mantispa laying eggs
Canon 1D Mk2n, EF 100macro, off camera flash

Great image!