It must be the voyeur in me

I used a small magnifying-glass on a rig to enlarge a variety of subjects. I think it gives a slightly voyeuristic view of things - a sort of peering into their innards. I used a Canon 50D and Sigma 105mm macro. Due to the way the glass magnified, very little of the subject outside of the rim of the glass actually showed in the camera lens. C&C welcome. I thought it was something different.

Stone
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/...4e002a56_b.jpg

Kiwi
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/...bba5453b_b.jpg

Shell
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/...dc1f1d33_b.jpg

Chive
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/...94bafa60_b.jpg

Interesting shots rob. Almost looks like a reflection in a mirror on some of them. I like the last one best of the 4.

First one is not good. But of the others maybe you could clean outside the lens because they are really good and worth the effort. Something different again and I am interested, maybe you could have a glass in a room, but it would be a lot of things to concentrate on. Maybe some mirrors as well so we can have macro with large definition and confusion and complexity. Love it. :D

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Originally Posted by arith

First one is not good. But of the others maybe you could clean outside the lens because they are really good and worth the effort. Something different again and I am interested, maybe you could have a glass in a room, but it would be a lot of things to concentrate on. Maybe some mirrors as well so we can have macro with large definition and confusion and complexity. Love it. :D

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Thanks, Steve. This was just a first attempt at the idea. I'm interested in shooting things that are distorted by mirrors, lenses etc, but it's actually very tricky to get it right.

Neat, Rob. Nice how the glass bounds the object magnified, since the real thing is too small to show up around the edges. Very cool.

Cheers,
Rick

Yet another brilliant idea Rob, congrats.

I have one of those things somewhere (in the garage probably, but I don't go there often), but you've come up with the idea and set the bar fairly high as usual. I'd take my hat off to you, were I wearing one now.

I guess the idea is focus the camera on the magnifying glass, then move the subject back and forth until it is also in focus.

As Steve says, the first is the weakest, I think because it's not instantly recognisable for what it is, the rest are great though.

Thanks for the inspiration,

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Originally Posted by Dave Humphries

I guess the idea is focus the camera on the magnifying glass, then move the subject back and forth until it is also in focus.

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They are actually stacked shots. I did about 8 manually focussed shots centred on the magnifier glass - autofocus is impossible. I used a studio light with a cone on to really narrow down the beam of light. I tried a softbox, but I got too much flare in the glass.