A Spicy Pennsic Pic [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

Although there's nothing particularly Pennsic-ish about this photo, I did shoot it at Pennsic. (I was showing off my macro skillz for some of my camp-mates after they'd watched me photograph an insect.) And I like it enough that I couldn't wait to post it. I'm especially pleased by the reflection of the salt.

Er, yeah, that thing that folks keep saying looks like an ice cube is a grain of table salt. :-) And the blobby, round thing on the left is neither a meatball nor falafel, but a single grain of ground black pepper. They're resting on the screen of my PDA, lit from the side by a flash.

No conventional microscope involved, though the question of whether the combination of lenses I cobbled together constitutes an improvised microscope or just a scary-looking macro lens is left as an exercise for my readers. From the camera out, it was a 2x teleconverter, a 200mm lens, then a 50mm lens backwards (attached to the 200mm lens by gaffing their lens hoods together). I set the flash on 1/16th power and adjusted its brightness by sliding it slightly closer or farther away.

1000x641 version

January

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
1 1	2 1	3 1	4 1	5 1	6 1	7 1
8 1	9 1	10 1	11 1	12 1	13 1	14 1
15 1	16 1	17 1	18 1	19 1	20 1	21 1
22 1	23 1	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Heh.. now I want a photo of your supermacro setup. :D

[link] [reply]

Doh! I took a picture of that and meant to post it at the same time as this, but I forgot about it while I was editing this photo. I'll get to it a little later.

[link] [parent] [reply]

Now I want to make a ceramic salt and pepper shaker set that looks like those. :D

Damn! Why didn't I think of that? That would indeed be cool.

That's awesome.

Thanks!

You're weird. Keep up the good work.

:-)

You've got to be shitting me. That's insane.

So of course I have to start my reply in the traditional Pennsic-story manner...

No shit, there I was, searching for something more impressive than bird seed to shoot in macro ... ;-)

The salt was close to the same size as the thing-that-may-or-may-not-have-been-a-stinger that I pulled out of a campmate's flesh with tweezers (but which got lost before I could take a high-magnification picture of it to identify it for sure), and once I'd stuck the macro rig together I really wanted to shoot something about that size to show off.

I did the salt alone first, and that looked pretty cool on its own, but there was enough room left in the frame for something else so I decided to add pepper. I sprinkled pepper on my PDA, and nudged one grain next to a salt grain with a fingernail.

The only thing that seemed insane about it to me at the time was that I hand-held the camera instead of using a tripod, but that was just a combination of laziness and stubbornness.

I seem to be having problems sending email, so I'll clutter this comment thread to answer your email about the phone charger.

You might be able to find a cheap charger locally, but make sure it fits your phone, as we have used more than one charger connector over the years. I saw USB charging cables at a dollar store recently.

If the problem is at the charger end, you can cut the cable off and connect it to a power supply between 4.5 and 6V. If it's too high (but less than around 12V) the phone won't charge, but it shouldn't fry either. Connecting the battery directly to a supply in the 4 to 4.2 V range (NOT HIGHER!) for a couple of hours will charge it also. Try not to put more than about an amp into it.

Thanks. I'll let you know how it goes.

(summarizing from email; repeating here in case anybody 'listening in' was wondering):

A phone is currently charging (at least according to its display) from a scrounged 4.4V wall wart connected to the cord snipped from the old charger. After a couple hours I'll unplug it and see how much charge the phone says the battery has then.

Okay, I'm impressed.

Yay! I enjoy doing things like this -- for all the frustrations of narrow depth-of-field and the challenges of getting the lighting right, macro is fun. So is finding prettiness where other people aren't looking for it (in this case because it's too small to notice most of the time).

that is TOTALLY AWESOME.

Macro is fun! And I happened to pull out all old lenses for this one -- the body is shiny and modern, but the lenses and teleconverter I used are all screw-mount, so they probably date from the mid 1970s or earlier. (I'm not sure how old my screwmount->K-mount adaptor is.) So there's a bit of retro-coolness in here as well. ;-)

I find this photo kinda bizarre cuz I know it was shot under our pennsic fly tent in the middle of the day IIRC

Late afternoon/early evening actually, but in daylight yes. (18:43 according to the timestamp in the EXIF data, and the clock in my camera was within a minute of being correct the last time I checked.) Throwing the background dark like that was a side effect (not an undesirable one, but one I wasn't specifically trying for) in this case, but I've done that on purpose in full daylight in the past, when I wanted to isolate a rose from a distracting background.

.. I can't tell you how impressed I am
(& yes, salt & pepper shakers like this ARE
in order - just make the pepper one a little
more black, so people don't keep insisting
it's a meatball).

And for the love of all that is holy, make the pepper shaker so that one can actually shake pepper out of it, i.e. not with one .5mm hole like most of the ones you see in stores.

(That's an amazing picture, and yes, I too want a picture of your lens lashup).

I've never understood why so many pepper shakers are built so they're so hard to get the pepper out of, while so many salt shakers will dump far too much salt out at once if you move your hand wrong.

Photo of the lens-combo coming tonight or tomorrow.

I've been thinking I should re-shoot this paying particular attention to finding a pepper grain that has a bit of the outside surface of the peppercorn attached, to get some of the colour people associate with black pepper in there. (At the time it was hard enough just finding the one I'd pushed next to the salt while looking through the macro rig. At that magnification, a few square inches feels like an awfully large area to search around in.)

I'm liking this salt&pepper shakers idea more and more.

Oh, my. My Beloved pointed me here. That's just awesome!

Thank you! I notice that the Flickr page has had more views already than the shot of a helicopter's exhaust causing heat-ripples in front of a building (http://flickr.com/photos/29474483@N00/2684709204/)[1], so I know somebody's been pointing other people to it.

[1] That one is also in the high-magnification category because I used a telescope as a lens, but at a mile away the whole helicopter fits in the frame despite the magnification. ;-)

That's just too cool. I remember seeing a photo back when I was a Computer Jockey it was of exhause from a smokestack hitting 2 different thermals from 2 different directions ....

I've seen the plume from the Baltimore recycling plant bent nearly into a question mark by passing through a couple of wind-direction transitions; it's unusual enough to hold my attention (I usually see it pass through just two layers / one transition, or go in a single direction). It's an interesting effect. I've shot it on film, but haven't caught it on digital yet (and that roll of film hasn't been developed yet -- it's part of the 200+ roll backlog waiting for me to be able to afford processing).

Boy howdy do I hear you on the afford part. I need to get a new camera. I can't get batteries for my fTb any more. :-( Hearing aid batteries *work* but they're always on, and they slow trickle down, so you can't tell if the battery is no longer adequately functional till it's too late. And they're too dad-dang expensive to put a new one every time you want to take pictures!

*sigh*

Highly cool, that.

I'm never sure which of the photos I think are cool (or not, sometimes) other people will find especially nifty. I'm really pleased by the responses so far. (Since I tend to fall into the "if I can do it, it must be easy" mental trap, I like the shot more for being pretty than for being impressive technically -- even though I was showing off when I shot it, I wasn't sure just how impressive it would be to most people. Between the folks being impressed that I could do it and the folks just saying it's cool (at least some of whom I hope mean they think it's pretty), I've been grinning like a ... like a very silly person, reading the replies.)

Well, color me very impressed at the picture and at the McGyvering of lenses both, kplzthx. In fact, I will link to this tomorrow for people on my list who don't read you.

Thanks! I find a lot of your photography beautiful and nifty as well, by the way.

Ok, so I don't know you too well but I have to agree with the person who commented you're weird (as my first response was something along the lines of 'that's something I would try and do if I could' and I am definitely weird! It is an incredible photo, so clear but of something so small. I am definitely impressed.

I suspect that if I tried to contest that, the folks who do know me well would laugh themselves sick (though I occasionally assert that I'm the normal one while the whole rest of the planet is weird).

Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

A Spicy Pennsic Pic

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

Wow...

Re: Wow...

Re: Wow...

Re: Wow...

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

Links

January