So winter has finally reached Bordeaux, not the kind of winter you find in the north or the mountains, no, the Bordeaux winter. Wet, foggy, mixed with sunshine, cold winds (well, what we call cold here).
But I am getting ready to take off to Martinique on tuesday, 30 c air temprature and the water is at 28 c. Palmtrees, white sand (or black, depending on your location). So stay tuned for less grey pictures!
Some of the photos I took with the DIY macro lens and the pop up flash reflector. The flowers are about 5 mm long, as well as the moss.
Well, again a boring grey day, what to do with it?
There in a drawer was still that old, broken 50mm lens with its lens hood. I never threw it away, always thought that I may find a use for it, and today I found it!
Build a macro lens with it!
We know that a normal lens works best for things further away, but when we hold it with the front lens against the camera, we can focus easily on things very close and small. So I dismantled the lens, kept only the lens block with the aperture mechanism. I mounted the lens hood on the front lens and did a quick test by holding the lens hood against the camera and it worked quite good.
But how to fix that all to the camera body?
I took a camera cap, cut out the inner section and glued it to the front rim of the lens hood. Now I could mount the lens almost like a normal lens. And it works also with my macro extension rings!
I did a couple of test shots and was quite satisfied with the results, but a bit more light would have been nice.
A Pringle tube gave me another idea, well not really Pringle, but something close enough. I opened both ends, made two cuts in one end to slip it onto the pop up flash, cut out an ellipsoid halfway down the tube to bend down the front part, gave an angle to the front part and had my macro reflector for pop up flash.
A rainy, grey Sunday afternoon, not much left to do but ...
... to take some photos of water drops on an old UV filter!
One light behind the filter, shining through a couple of holes in a cardboard, another shining from the right of the camera through a diffuser and every now and then a small LED flashlight from various angles.
So, there was that spider on my bathroom door and I took a couple of photos of it, using a 14mm macro extension ring and the 18-55 EFS. And since my wife and my daughter were almost screaming when seeing the photos, I thought I could make it even more scary. I downloaded the raw files on my tablet and used Photo Mate R2 and Photoshop Touch to create the scary spider.
And finally fall has reached Bordeaux. I went out this morning to take some photos in the Jardin botanique, using the 7mm macro extension ring with the 18-55 on some close-ups.
For ages I have been using Canon cameras, the first camera I bought was a Canon Ftb Ql, followed by an A 1, a T 90, an EOS 650 and after a long break without photography, an EOS 600D.
But when I look at the new cameras coming out this time, what caught my eye and made me drool?
The Samsung NX 30 and lately the Samsung NX 1!
So why is it not a Canon camera, or by another known camera brand?
If you want to give me a EOS 5, a Leica or Pentax, I take it, because this are great cameras, but if I had the money I would buy the NX 1.
For what reasons?
Well, when I restarted with the photography and was looking for a camera I was somewhat disappointed by the lack of vision of the big players. Digital they were, but there was nothing new, I have more digital options on my Android phone for taking photos. I know, a smartphone is not a DSLR, but with today's phones you can take good photos! Not because of the sensor or the lens, but because of the way the developers opened new ways to take a photo.
The known players seem to have simply replaced the 35mm film by a sensor, I am simplifying, but nothing new in the handling, the way to use it, to work with it. There is still, the mirror, the prism and if you don't have the high end camera, only 95% of the final image in the viewfinder.
Now comes Samsung, and others, and say, the mirror was great for film, but using a sensor, we don't really need it. The prism? Why, we use a small screen in the viewfinder and can add more information, like the histogram, to take better photos. And on it goes.
I can use my phone or tablet to command the NX 1, wireless!
I love macro, but macro means as well awkward positions, very low, in wet grass. I am over 50 now, and it is not always easy to get a good look in the viewfinder or on the screen with Live view. Having a tablet in the hand while the camera is on the ground, almost inside a bush, is of great comfort. I can already do that with the fantastic DSLR controller by chainfire, but I have to use a USB cable, or connect my phone via USB to use its WiFi to connect to my tablet. You see the hassle?
In short, I think the big camera builders have been to slow to the all the possibilities of the digital age and newcomers like Samsung bring in a lot of new ideas and seem to understand what digital really means.
