focus vs. zoom

Okay, first of all I want to clarify something. I actually am quite fond of bugs. Despite the creepiness factor of the chrysalis, I find insects incredibly fascinating and a huge inspiration for a lot of things. Take for instance, vehicular transportation. Most cars and planes and helicopters and whatnot could take a page from how insects are put together. Let's look at helicopters specifically. A typical helicopter has one main rotor dead center. Look at the "rotor" system on a fly though...four wings that operate in sequence and with incredible accuracy. Imagine if all helicopters followed the design of a fly? I understand there is a mass-to-lift ratio that you can't quite duplicate given how heavy a helicopter is...sure. But just the idea that anything we've done can be equated to and done better in the insect world astounds me.

That dealt with, I want to turn my attention to explaining the biggest issue I've faced with this macro stuff. If you have ever had to deal with the concept of depth of field, then this will be a fairly easy topic to understand. But even if you haven't, then I think you'll get it in a few minutes.

See, this new lens I bought? It doesn't "focus" in the sense that you might be used to when taking pictures. Instead what it does is zoom in and out at a distance of 6 inches down to a millimeter or something. So what you do is set the zoom to a magnification level (1x up to 5x), move the camera in and out in order to find the general distance needed to get into focus, and then fine tune it by adjusting the zoom level at very small increments.

An image at three times normal resolution and at a distance of two inches or so from the lens might look like this: For this shot, I needed to put the camera on a tripod, lie the pencil horizontally parallel to the lens, and then fine tune the zoom over six pictures in order to get it right. And even then, setting the focus is really tricky because of this depth of field business. At such a close range, depth of field means that something in focus at 2 inches will be out of focus at 2.01 inches and much, much worse at 2.02 inches.

By way of example: So in this example, the green plane that bisects the pencil is the "field" that is in focus at any given distance. To make the pencil appear in focus in my picture, I must choose the place that would appear the best when in focus and let the foreground and background fall out of focus exponentially. I chose to set the intersection of the wood grain and the colored lead be my point of interest as it had the most happening in this shot.

And thus I hope you see the problem with taking good insect pictures. As you can expect, insects don't just sit there two inches from the lens and wait for you to zoom, fine tune, and snap off however many shots it takes to get something good. And neither are they a flat pane that can be in focus at every point of the picture. Instead you must choose a point on the insect to get into focus, hope it stays still, and hope the exposure is right and you don't shake the camera at all.

That said, there are plenty of wonderful macro-photography sites and blogs out there with people taking great pics. There have to be some tricks of the trade I just don't know yet. And that, my friends, is the fun part of discovering how to use something new.

creepiness: part deux

Today we moved our caterpillars from their self-contained food emporium where they lived during shipping and pre-metamorphosis into a mesh enclosure where they will emerge as beautiful butterflies. Mind you, if you know nothing about metamorphosis the cocoons look pretty cool. But the second I learned that pretty much the entire caterpillar dissolves into some sort of amorphic biomass before reassembling into a butterfly (thanks for that comforting thought, David) I returned to thinking of this whole process as very creepy. Yes, it is science...and yes, it is pretty cool...but still darn creepy.

Cocoon.

Cocoon close-up.

rules

Rule #1 in Macro Photography: insects don't pose for the camera. They actually like to move. And often. And quickly. So I got a mostly in focus insect photo and a decent one of a dandelion. Please enjoy!

turn up the creepy

New macro lens and flash system to play with. New blog entry in months. Go figure. :)

Our girls' caterpillar-to-butterfly experiment yields interesting photo fodder.
For anyone interested: shutter speed 1/250 sec., lens aperture F/4, focal length 65mm, iso-800

Close up of caterpillar hair? Whiskers?
I don't know what they are quite honestly...
And again: shutter speed 1/250 sec., lens aperture F/4, focal length 65mm, iso-800

breaking out the bedpost

What am I up to this week? Well, playing with the UIC band as a fill in second bassoonist for starters! It has been years since I've had the chance to play with a large ensemble and I'm quite enjoying it. Never mind the fact that I really haven't practiced bassoon in years (shhhhh...don't tell anybody!)

For those of you who are interested:

First Annual UIC Pops Concert
Conducted by Randy Brion
Sunday, April 27 at 3:00 p.m.
"The UIC Concert Band present a free concert that will feature light classical music, Broadway show tunes, and the music of Boston pops composer and arranger Leroy Anderson."

update: april 08

For my dedicated reader base of 4 or 5, business is good and life is better...and thus blogging takes a backseat. For those with an interest, I continue to work on themorse.com, a real first class treat of a gig, while launching/revising multiple other sites: poprs.com, andersonvillept.com, and fctc.biz (our site) to name a few. I also have recently become an alpha tester for register.com and their soon to be released server update.

I have occasionally still found myself on the CTA which is much easier to stand when only rarely visited.
My office is as clean as it has been in years.
And I get the rare pleasure in today's go, go, go biz world of being able to have lunch with my little ones every day.
I can't complain. Hope all is well with the lot of you who check this post out.

escape from the rock

Let me be the first to announce fctc.biz as the new home for Kelly's and my new business From Concept to Completion. There is nothing there currently other than a "coming soon" announcement. For samples we simply point to my portfolio at airanw.com. [insert shameless plug here] If any of you know of anyone in need of editing, print design, web design, or video work let us know! [end shameless plug]

As for why we are doing this? Well, I personally have 4 reasons...two of which are pictured below. Kelly is elusive and won't let me take pictures. And Pepper? Well, she's around here somewhere.