New year, brings new directions. At least I can hope since a little Fuji addition which was supposed to be a Christmas present arrived well into the new year. The Fuji 16mm extension tube. It’s a little piece of hardware that moves your lens away from the camera. The nice thing is that it has all the electronic contacts, so auto focus works as normal, and the camera knows which lens is attached. It allows for the lens to focus closer to the subject, which makes practically any lens a macro lens. The one caveat of the extension tube is that the lens looses focus at about 1 meter. Then again I was expecting to shoot with this tube normally anyway. Most of the images were taken with the Fuji 56mm f1.2 and it worked very well as a macro lens. I also tried my old Pentax 100mm f4 Macro lens. It worked very well.
I wanted to compare the results with a Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro, which is considered a true macro lens as the level of magnification is 1:1. Both Fuji 60mm Macro and the old Pentax 100mm Macro are only 1:2 which is half the magnification of the Canon lens.
My wife went first with the Canon 40D and 100mm Macro. I literally followed her footsteps around our house. It was a pretty chilly morning, with a fresh light snow, perfect for this type of photography. Here are the results. The images in this gallery will alternate, starting with Fuji, then Canon, Fuji, Canon, etc. Personally, I think for a $100, the Fuji 16mm Extension Tube is well worth it, and it’s an easy, cheap way of expanding your photography.
Great demonstration and shots!
Did you use a tripod?
No tripods were harmed. All hand held 🙂
Hi, great images, congrats. When I read the EFIX data I see the images number 13 and 15 are taken with a 21mm lens. Which Lens is this?. Thanks.
Yes, that’s because these images were taken using an old Pentax 100mm f2.8 macro lens attached to the extension tube. I just forgot the change the focal length setting in the camera.
I love Don Komarechka’s snowflake series and your images here really remind of just how much more beautiful the snowflakes are when viewed within their environment. It seems that life is all about relationships and when you separate and isolate a single entity from its environment, it loses impact/value/relevance/meaning/scale/etc… Hmmmm… makes me wonder about how that relates to portraiture… How much of a person can you really show through, in a single studio style portrait? And on and on the mind goes! Sorry, the contrast between the two representations of snowflakes really struck me.
4 and #6 are my favorites from your collection here.
Funny, you picked my wife’s images shot with canon macro 🙂 I find that including something that small in their environment just adds to the photo. I agree as to portraits as well… I think there are your typical fashion portraits where the model is just part of the makeup, clothes etc. and there are ones where makeup clothes become secondary and the person behind shines through… I think I like the latter
I agree. Personality is more interesting to me than cosmetics. That being said, truthfully, I love it all. We are a moody bunch and different images fit different moods. What I like today, I might like something completely different tomorrow.