Camera Labs

THis night I was painting some miniatures and I though: "What if I take a picture through a magnifying glass?"
So, I get myself my 2 magnifying glasses, put them RIGHT in front of the lens, and voila! It photographed things 2 cm close!
Here are the first test pictures:
(Warning, 600k files.)
http://netbreakteste.no.sapo.pt/123.jpg
http://netbreakteste.no.sapo.pt/1234.jpg
http://netbreakteste.no.sapo.pt/12345.jpg
Each head measures less than 3 cm (width).

Disregarding the cromatic aberrations, what you think ?

I don't know if this is something important enough to post a topic, but I was glad I managed to do something I wanted.

PS: No... I'm not sponsored by Valve .

_________________
Proud owner of:
- Canon 400D + 18-55mm + 55-200m + Grip;
- Leica M3 +35mm + 50mm + 135mm;
- Pentax K1000;
- Sony W200.

Hi netbreak, those pics are really nice and with a little editing in photo editing program i.e. Adobe Lightroom, you could probably get away with some awesome results. Anyway thanks for the tip, I'll try that next time I'm in a tight macro situation.

Keep me posted!

b.t.w. Posts don't have to be "important", but as long as they follow the forum guidelines you'll be fine.

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Assistant News Photojournalist
Nikon and Canon Systems
A variety of f/2.8 lenses from 10.5 to 400mm
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Tomorrow I'm going to try with a 200mm lens!
Edit: 123.jpg has decent eyes!

_________________
Proud owner of:
- Canon 400D + 18-55mm + 55-200m + Grip;
- Leica M3 +35mm + 50mm + 135mm;
- Pentax K1000;
- Sony W200.

Hi netbreak,

Can I put my "pixel-peeper" hat on please? Having a look at your images they all show pretty significant chromatic aberration. To see what I mean have a look at the large white lettering in the background. Near the edges of the frame there is a blue fringe and on the inboard sides of the letters there is a yellow fringe.

This is probably to be expected as the magnifying glass won't be colour corrected. I would be interested if you could post a couple of shots of a similar scene (with the white lettering like your first image), the first of which taken with the magnifying glass in place and the second one taken without the magnifying glass but digitally zoomed in post-processing so that the same part of the scene fills the frame.

It may be that the magnifying glass is giving you real benefit but it would be nice to see an A/B comparison.

Bob.

P.S. Hope you don't mind but I've moved this thread to the Macro forum as I think it fits there well and you might get some more feedback.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

No problem Bob! I allways had a problem with posting topics in the right forum.
Anyway, yes... I noticed the chromatic aberrations, but, I did this experiment to "paint brush" peep my little miniatures, I can study them much clearer now. Because digital zoom only augments the information that it is there (so if I expand a 5mp area to a 10 mp, it will still be 5mp) I wanted to zoom in optically, even with aberrations and stuff. I didn't expect much to learn something with it.

Cheers.

_________________
Proud owner of:
- Canon 400D + 18-55mm + 55-200m + Grip;
- Leica M3 +35mm + 50mm + 135mm;
- Pentax K1000;
- Sony W200.

I'd say it degrades picture quality down to the level of a mid-range compact.

But all in all, if that solves your problem, why not?

_________________
Nikon D90 + MB-D80 + SB-600 + AF-S VR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 + AF-S 35mm f/1.8 + AF 85mm f/1.8 | My photos on Flickr.