Overview of my gear

For those who’d like to just read about my equipment for close-up work, or even astrophotography, it is a bit further down, otherwise here is my whole gear history!

My current camera is a Canon 5Dmk4 but it wasn’t always that way.  I started with a Zenit, a hunk of Russian metal that had never seen electricity.  This is now my teaching camera, demonstrating apertures and shutter speed in a way that digital cameras simply cannot. After that, there were a whole host of second-hand film cameras including medium format ones that produced a wonderfully large negative, almost like a picture in itself.  There was even one that was given to me by my grandfather which I had to load with single sheets of photographic paper (the film size was no longer available).  I once found a photo in a book that had probably been taken with this very camera; it was from the Boer War (1901). 

It wasn’t until I was at university that I brought a brand new film camera, a Canon 50E.  After that one I moved to digital, the 20D from Canon but after a few years and taking more low light images I began noticing the noise produced so felt that it was time to upgrade to a 5Dmk2 which I still use now (though I’ve had it modified for astrophotography so that more of the visible light spectrum it’s the sensor – this means that the typically red nebulas show up much better). More recently my 5Dmk4 was born and arrived in my hands eager to start work!

Equipment

Canon 5Dmk4

Canon 5Dmk2,  astro-moddified

(Both are used with L-brackets)

Gitzo Systematic tripod, GT3543XLS

FHM ball head CB-48FT II

Lenses:                   24-70mm f2.8 II

                                100-400mm f5.6 II

                                100mm f2.8 Macro – this is my favourite lens, especially for photographing the stars.

15mm Iaowo macro lens

24mm 2.5-5x Iaowo macro lens

A whole range of extension tubes for getting even closer

A cable release, an intervalometer for taking timed long exposures

B + W circular polariser

I used to use a whole set of Lee graduated filters but since I live almost as far as you can get from the sea I’d often find that the tops of trees or hills would be a bit darker so now I will always blend several exposures to make the scene look natural.

My macro setup.

Set up in a corner of a room is where I can take close-up photos whatever the weather from a basic 1:1 scale to approximately 20:1.  There are lots of little pieces of equipment that I’ve built up over time in this photo.  It is all based around a WeMacro sliding rail from China mounted on a block of wood for height which in turn is on a thick sheet of wood which connects to the sample platform (a Lab jack) which can be moved in three directions. On top of the stand are two crocodile clips on flexible arms which are very useful in holding samples or reflectors.  All are mounted on 4 rubber feet on top of a fairly solid Ikea table.  Everything about this has been to try to reduce vibrations but even so I cannot take photos on this when the washing machine is on and cars driving past outside can be problematic!

I chose continuous lighting for two reasons; first it is easier to see how you are modelling an object and two, I already had the swan-neck fibre optics for visual microscopy.  One light I use further back to create shadows and the other has a ping pong ball on it to aid in diffusion; one of the biggest problems I’ve found are highlights on the specimen which not only look unsightly but actively encourage chromatic aberrations.  A flat panel light box is at the back (mostly covered by coloured backgrounds) that I previously used to view film slides on.

The photographic equipment I use on here varies from my macro lens to adding extension tubes/bellows which can extend the length up to 40cm!  Sometimes macro photographers will use lenses reversed on their camera to get extra close.  I have tried this in the past and I have found the quality of the image often decreases towards the edge of the frame so I prefer to use extension tubes which are empty tubes without any optics.  The only problem that I need to be aware of when working is strong vignetting as the length increases.  They are also really cheap!  If I want to go very close (for example, butterfly eggs) I use my long lens (100-400) with an adaptor on the front which connects it to a microscope objective, a Nikon Plan 10x/0.25.  The telephoto lens acts as an infinity tube.  If you’d like to find out more what this means I found the extreme-macro.co.uk website extremely helpful when I was learning about this type of photography.