So I'm not much of a macro guy. Did a little bit of large format table top & copy stuff 25+ years ago.
Been eyeing this Irix 150mm f2.8 macro for a while, really just appreciating it as a nicely designed tool.
Found one used/mint for a great price and had just sold my old 60 micro so I bought it to give it a try.
As a portrait photographer who shoots wide open all the time, yes the dust is distressing and I cleaned my sensor right after the flower pics. And, wow, that silver doesn't look quite as nice at ~1:2!
These are full D750 files shot at f11. Since I'm unused to shooting macro, should I be happy with the performance?
I never shoot Macro, and this wasn’t even intended to be a macro shot, just found this strange looking Bee on my mosquito screen, and decided to take a photo. I couldn’t get another angle since if I moved the screen it would have flown away.
It’s with a Pentax 645D and an FA 120mm F4 Macro lens. It’s also my first ever try at focus stacking, don’t know if it was even needed but I took 3 photos at different focal points and merge them automatically in Photoshop or Lightroom, don’t remember which one I used.
pablovi wrote:
I never shoot Macro, and this wasn’t even intended to be a macro shot, just found this strange looking Bee on my mosquito screen, and decided to take a photo. I couldn’t get another angle since if I moved the screen it would have flown away.
It’s with a Pentax 645D and an FA 120mm F4 Macro lens. It’s also my first ever try at focus stacking, don’t know if it was even needed but I took 3 photos at different focal points and merge them automatically in Photoshop or Lightroom, don’t remember which one I used.
I am in this hobby of mechanical keyboards, and I recently found a macro lens attachment for phones. It actually does a pretty good job, I'd say, for the price. Of course, the DoF loss is still substantial, but I've been satisfied for something I can quickly attach and shoot with on something as light as my phone. Example below... (sorry for the fuzz here and there!)
That said, I also use my Sony E mount macro lens for close shoots of hand-sculpted and resin-cast keycaps.
I love that you're shooting something mechanical. But a couple of things here. One is that the images are far to large, pixel wise for display here. It's doesn't help to have to scroll around so much. Usually 1200-1500 pixels is about right. Second is that you might find focus stacking to a very effective technique for this type of subject. Not saying that selective focus doesn't work, but for macro you can actually focus stack for great depth and still have a great looking out of focus area as well. And lastly, depending on exactly how close you are, f/11 might be taking away from critical detail, which, of course, brings us back to focus stacking once more. But it really depends on what you want to do with the images and how big you might print, if you're going to print at all.
Panorascal wrote:
So I'm not much of a macro guy. Did a little bit of large format table top & copy stuff 25+ years ago.
Been eyeing this Irix 150mm f2.8 macro for a while, really just appreciating it as a nicely designed tool.
Found one used/mint for a great price and had just sold my old 60 micro so I bought it to give it a try.
As a portrait photographer who shoots wide open all the time, yes the dust is distressing and I cleaned my sensor right after the flower pics. And, wow, that silver doesn't look quite as nice at ~1:2!
These are full D750 files shot at f11. Since I'm unused to shooting macro, should I be happy with the performance?
