G21 Macro

[yellowsulphur]

I though macro photography looked cool so I picked up a new lens. I shot these hand held so I used flash to compensate for hand shake.

[savasyn]

Wow, great job getting such sharp results shooting like that! Cool pix as well

[emilio]

impressive! what's yer setup?

i keep around a 10 year old Nikon Coolpix 950 - busted battery door, needs power adapter - just because it has one of the best macro lenses i've ever seen on a digital point-n-shoot.

- emilio

[yellowsulphur]

Thanks. I used a Nikon D90 with a Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 and some off camera flashes. I really need to get a tripod. The Coolpix 950 is a great camera and was ahead of it's time with the ability to get close to 1:1 without software zoom. I wanted one, but couldn't afford it at the time.

[emilio]

mmm, D90. those Nikons always have such good color...

the Coolpix 950 will do stuff like this:



it'll get closer, but that's what was handy. sadly, whatever the contemporary 950 equivalent is has one mortal flaw: no manual settings. shock! horror! the side-mount is still a very nice way to pack a lot of lens in there, though.

- emilio

[murdoc89]

Wow nice artistic pics! They look great and they're really cool. It's interesting to see some of the detail so close up.

[Booshanky]

I though macro photography looked cool so I picked up a new lens. I shot these hand held so I used flash to compensate for hand shake.

What kind of lens did you get? And what are the specs on your camera setup?

[yellowsulphur]

What kind of lens did you get? And what are the specs on your camera setup?

I'm using a D90 with a Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 VR. Great lens, but tends to pick up red/cyan chromatic aberrations wide open when shooting areas of high opposing contrast. Shiny triggers look funny with a red/blue outline to them.

Looking at the camera and exif data:

On camera processing - neutral
Sharpness - normal
Manual mode
f/11 @ 1/60
ISO 200
White balance - tungsten
Metering mode - center weighted and matrix
Rear curtain flash sync
High speed flash sync
EV 0

Flashes:

1 sb600 and a couple of sbr200 wireless through CLS using iTTL
Gelled orange for tungsten white balance
sb600 EV +3.0 for ceiling bounce @ 14mm
sbr200 EV +1.0 for the gels and shot direct

Things I learned:

Nikon color correction gels are not standard. They are too strong which is why everything looks, well, orange.

When using gels be consistent. I used Nikon gels for the sbr200's and Rosco CTO for the sb600. Correct white balance correction is difficult because part of the image will be either warm or cold.

I need a tripod.