White Pansy on Flickr.I was out again this weekend armed with one of my trusty Helios 44M lenses and the macro tubes trying to finally get the grasp of that particular combination. This pansy was out in the front garden and I had watered it earlier in the day so I thought I should give it a go to try and get a couple shots. The lighting wasn’t great and I’m still not confident shooting handheld so I bumped the ISO up to 400 for the entire time I was out but I think I got away with it. This particular shot was with 41mm of macro tube and f4 aperture. I was about 20cm (8 inches) from the plant and the depth of field was quite shallow, but it gave the effect I was after. I’ll try and post a few more shots later in the week.Via Flickr: Helios 44M, 58mm @ f4, 41mm macro tube.

White Pansy on Flickr.

I was out again this weekend armed with one of my trusty Helios 44M lenses and the macro tubes trying to finally get the grasp of that particular combination.

This pansy was out in the front garden and I had watered it earlier in the day so I thought I should give it a go to try and get a couple shots.

The lighting wasn’t great and I’m still not confident shooting handheld so I bumped the ISO up to 400 for the entire time I was out but I think I got away with it.

This particular shot was with 41mm of macro tube and f4 aperture. I was about 20cm (8 inches) from the plant and the depth of field was quite shallow, but it gave the effect I was after.

I’ll try and post a few more shots later in the week.


Via Flickr:
Helios 44M, 58mm @ f4, 41mm macro tube.

2 Notes
Lily Dream on Flickr.Via Flickr: In between taking shots of my son at feeding time I was able to take a few photos of some lilies that I had bought my wife for Valentine’s day. I started off with my “nifty fifty” but then swapped over to a Helios-44M with a 20mm macro tube between the lens and the body. Wide open at f2 it was too shallow to get anything in focus at this range, so this was stopped down to f2.8 and it landed me the effect I was trying to achieve. Back on the computer very little post processing was required, just a slight adjustment to the white balance and tiny increase in definition was all it required. This is my favourite macro shot of the day, although if you take a quick glance through my photostream you will see a few more, including the first lily shot taken on the Canon lens.

Lily Dream on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
In between taking shots of my son at feeding time I was able to take a few photos of some lilies that I had bought my wife for Valentine’s day. I started off with my “nifty fifty” but then swapped over to a Helios-44M with a 20mm macro tube between the lens and the body. Wide open at f2 it was too shallow to get anything in focus at this range, so this was stopped down to f2.8 and it landed me the effect I was trying to achieve.
Back on the computer very little post processing was required, just a slight adjustment to the white balance and tiny increase in definition was all it required. This is my favourite macro shot of the day, although if you take a quick glance through my photostream you will see a few more, including the first lily shot taken on the Canon lens.

10 Notes
Cherry Tree Bud on Flickr.Another of my recent photos today, this is the frozen bud of a cherry blossom tree in my front garden. It was taken two weeks ago after a particularly cold night, so cold that the spiders web attached to the tree had frozen over with ice crystals. This is the first time I’d been out in the garden with a macro lens, this particular shot was taken with my Canon 18-55mm IS kit lens with a +10 close up filter screwed on the front. Focussing was particularly difficult so I ended up setting the lens to manual then adjusted to the distance from the camera to the bud to get it nice and sharp. Since I took this shot I’ve now acquired some macro tubes for my m42 lenses so next time I’ll be trying these shots with one of my Helios lenses.

Cherry Tree Bud on Flickr.

Another of my recent photos today, this is the frozen bud of a cherry blossom tree in my front garden.

It was taken two weeks ago after a particularly cold night, so cold that the spiders web attached to the tree had frozen over with ice crystals.

This is the first time I’d been out in the garden with a macro lens, this particular shot was taken with my Canon 18-55mm IS kit lens with a +10 close up filter screwed on the front.

Focussing was particularly difficult so I ended up setting the lens to manual then adjusted to the distance from the camera to the bud to get it nice and sharp.

Since I took this shot I’ve now acquired some macro tubes for my m42 lenses so next time I’ll be trying these shots with one of my Helios lenses.

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