Beetle - Salad Dinner

Took a short detour after work to check out my usual hunting ground near my apartment. Main intention was to try out the new panagor 55 that arrived some months ago, but never got to use.

I first came across this lens abt a year ago - it belonged to a friend and after taking it out for one test shoot, i could not get it out of my mind. 

Its small, light and VERY sharp. The only limitation was that its a PK lens with no A contact so that complicates matters when using a flash. nevertheless, its a very good lens.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

Test Shoot: Elicar 90mm F2.5

Yes, LBA strikes again. When I saw a mint copy of this lens, I just HAD to have it to complete my collection =)

Not bad for a 20 yr old lens =)

Sigma 50mm F2.8 Macro - Test Shoot

Didn't have a chance to take this new lens out for a test shoot until now. After the shoot, I'm actually very impressed with it.


I bought this lens mainly to serve as a lightweight, hand-held setup and that was how I tested it - hand-held with pop-up flash =) no fancy flash-gun or ring-flash, just a pop-up flash diffuser. It performed beautifully.


#1 - the boken is very nice and the sharpness is very good.

#2 - my usual "water-droplet test". stepped down slightly to F5, no flash. sharpness is good and bokeh very pleasing.

 

#3 - because its a small and light setup, it allows me to close-in and respond quickly to any subjects. this JS would have been a little hard to catch if i had to struggle with a mono-pod or tripod.

#4 - it renders colours beautifully. Not much PP done. just the basic tweaking in camera raw.

New Toy - AF160FC Ring-Flash

I received an offer I could not refuse for a Pentax AF160FC Ring-Flash... I was actually waiting for the Metz 15 MS-1 to be re-stocked but since this one became available, I changed my plans ;)


Results are not bad at all :)


Shot with K-5 + DFA 100mm WR

The only thing i gotta get used to is the reflection of the flash-tubes when photographing reflective surfaces :)  like this one - you could see the reflection of the flash tubes in almost every  water droplet :P

The modelling lights are real handy for night shoots as well. really love this. Solid piece of equipment.

New Toy - Sigma 50mm F2.8 Macro

The speedpost courier delivered this today =) 


Its an old MF sigma 50mm F2.8 macro. Its not a very rare lens ;) it becomes available on ebay once in awhile and since this copy looks set to close at what i felt to be a very reasonable price,i put in a bid for it and won =)


Its a truly mint copy. Almost no blemishes on the lens barrel and focusing ring - the rubber focusing ring looks almost brand new. All the markings were intact and it came with its original front and rear caps. 


I buy stuff from ebay occasionally and the conditions usually range from terrible to pretty good. This is only the 2nd time that I had been impressed with the quality of the item i bought.


I only have 1 thing more to say about this: WOW!

Introduction

After much procrastination and delay, i've finally got down to put together this blog to document my macro journey.


My equipment set-up consists of:


DSLR Body
- Pentax K-5


Macro Lenses
- Sigma 50mm F2.8 macro
- Pentax D-FA 100mm WR macro
- Vivitar Series 1 105mm F2.5 macro
- Voigtlander Lanthar 125mm F2.5 macro


Flash
- Metz 48 Flash


Teleconverters
- Vivitar 2x Macro Converter
- Kenko 1.5x SHQ Tele Converter