This weekend, the local honeybees were giving some echinacea blooms in our yard a good workover, so I thought I was overdue in documenting their work.
Normally, the bees seem to prefer working solo. But even though we’ve got a swath of echinacea for them to work on, sometimes they need to “double up” in order to keep working. I used an Olympus E-M1 and 60mm macro for this shot, BTW.
Interesting things, flowering cacti — they give a photographer such a list of contrasts to work with. Â Bright vs. muted colors.
Spiky vs. soft shapes.
Angular vs. rounded shapes.
These are all shots of a “Nipple cactus” (Coryphantha sulcata, a.k.a. Pineapple cactus), seen at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. At least, that’s how it was labeled — but all the online information on this species shows it to be both smaller and bearing yellow flowers. Â Not sure what’s going on there…
We got hit by an odd late-winter storm the other day, and here’s what we woke up to:
This was the result of a storm that was supposed to dump a foot or more of snow on us, but wound up leaving us maybe an inch. And since the storm hit town quickly (temperature dropped by 40 degrees F in a matter of a few hours), it landed on warm pavement.
So for at least a few hours the next morning, I could play with my camera (in super cold temps) with this unusual snow pattern — only surviving over the joints between our patio pavers.
This is a Japanese Beetle (Popillia japonica), in case you’re unfamiliar with them — beautifully colored, with their iridescent shells offset against the flower petals’ colors.  But hell on roses (and grapes, and birch trees, and…).
Japanese beetles are apparently not a big problem in Japan — they have many predators that help keep their numbers under control. Â But since their arrival in the U.S. early in the 20th century, they’ve been expanding their territory from their original “beachhead” in New Jersey. Â Courtesy of the warming climate, they made it to Colorado a few years ago. Â Luckily beetle traps are available via the internet, since local home and garden stores apparently haven’t taken notice of their arrival. Â Yet.
Seen in the War Memorial Rose Garden; Littleton, Colorado.
An interesting couple spotted on the beach in Aa’ena Park, Kauai, Hawaii:
The rock and bit of coral are shown just as I found them, resting on beach sand. So that should give you an idea of the scale of this scene — the coral piece is a bit over 1 cm across. Image taken using Olympus’ stellar 60mm macro lens for micro-4/3.
Seen at the Ali’i Gardens in Maui, Hawaii:
My apologies for the dearth of posts lately, but my computer’s hard drive has been getting flaky (bad enough to cause issues, but not bad enough to make the source of the problem obvious), and finally died yesterday. Its replacement should be online within a few days.
If you have a micro 4/3 camera, and have any interest at all in macro photography, you’ve likely been waiting for the Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro lensto appear. It’s been teased on one site or another for months, but was only formally announced at this year’s Photokina in Cologne. So since I’m trying to track Olympus‘ fairly obvious momentum from 4/3 toward micro 4/3 (and have a more-than-passing interest in macro photography), I duly put in my pre-order for one as soon as Adorama would accept it.
Fast forward a few weeks, and my copy of this little gem was delivered to my doorstep.
DId I mention little? In spite of the time I spent looking over the lens’ spec sheet, I’m still blown away by how petite the thing is (my hands are big, but they’re not that big.
For instance, compare the 60mm on the right with the E-M5’s stock (12-50mm) zoom lens. They’re almost exactly the same length, but the 60mm is a bit skinnier still (sadly, since that means yet another expensive lens hood to buy…).
The focus limiter switch primarily helps speed up focusing when you’re working up close (0.19 – 0.4 meters) — but also lets you set the focus to its closest point (equivalent to 1:1 reproduction) by just flicking the switch to that extreme of its range. Â Note that the 1:1 setting is spring-loaded, so you’ll need to have the camera set up for manual focusing to take advantage of it (otherwise the focus will change away from 1:1 when you depress the shutter release). Â The lens also gives you a scale on its side, showing what the magnification factor will be given where it’s focused — handy, if you’re either manually focusing or have the camera on a tripod.
Fortunately this lens is perfectly sized to work with Olympus‘ MAL-1 Macro Arm Light that was first released years ago with the early PEN cameras. Together with an E-M5 and grip (the grip is essential for my hands, at any rate), it makes a potent but still compact package.
So let’s put them to work.
Example images
For my first victim subject, I thought I’d pick something colorful and detailed that I had kicking around.  Lacking any interesting postage stamps, I grabbed a “souvenir” 10 Quetzales note.  Lots of art in a bank note that’s only worth about $1.25, so a perfect experimental subject — pay particular attention to the little Maya figure on the left side of the bill (BTW, the graph paper is ruled one line per mm).
Here’s a full image of the figure, taken from about as near to the note as I could reliably get (I don’t have an adjustable “stage” for macro photography, so fiddled with my tripod height by hand). Â As you can see, at very close to 1:1 the lens gives a nice, detailed image without any obvious distortion or vignetting in the corners.
For real macro afficionados, here’s a 100% crop of 800×800 pixels roughly centered on the figure’s eye. Â You can see lots of detail in the surface of the paper, again a good performance from the lens, camera, and macro lights (but the lights can be a bit fiddly this close to the subject).
Since I’d heard this lens is also a good performer as a telephoto prime, I next left the macro light indoors for a little impromptu photography outdoors with the lens. Â As you’d expect, it’s a stellar performer up close.
Further out, I couldn’t provoke it into displaying any CA, even pointed right at the Sun. Â Oly has used a new low-reflection coating on this lens, and it shows — you have to work hard to get anything resembling a lens flare out of this gem.
All the images I’ve taken to date have been nice and sharp where I want them to be, and the circular aperture results in good, smooth bokeh elsewhere.
And yes, the lens is great for portraits!
Summary and conclusions
If you’re shooting with micro 4/3, you now have a good range of options for macro photography.
If you’re on a tight budget and don’t do much macro shooting, Olympus’ macro converter (MCON-P01, $50 retail in the U.S.) along with a 14-42mm kit lens is likely all you need.
If you want super-close-up images, and have the money ($500), the Yasuhara Nanoha 5:1 macro lens is a good tool — but only covers a focusing range of 0.43 – 0.78″ (11 – 20mm). Â It’s a powerful but very specialized tool.
But if you want a good, flexible macro lens that’s also good for portraiture and other telephoto jobs, the Olympus 60mm f/2.8 can’t be beat. It sells for less than Panasonic’s 45mm f/2.8 macro lens ($750 retail in the U.S.), and is weather-sealed to boot.  And while not quite as optically fast as the venerable Olympus 50mm f/2.0 4/3 macro lens, the 60mm f/2.8 focuses dramatically faster on a micro 4/3 camera.
In summary, what I see as the pluses and minuses of the lens…
Pro:
Con:
Craft and Vision has just released a new eBook — as usual it costs $5, and as usual it’s a good one. The latest title is Up Close by Andrew S. Gibson, and is all about Macro and Close-up Photography — so not a lot of philosophizing in this title, but plenty of practical information for those who shoot things up close (or who are interested in giving it a try).
So what, you may ask, will your $5 get you? Up Close is 90 pages long, and is divided in four parts. Part one (the largest of them) is all about equipment — dedicated macro lenses, close-up lenses (a.k.a. close-up adapters or diopters), reversing rings, extension tubes, and the like. Each gets an exhaustive discussion of its uses, benefits, limitations, and things to consider before you buy. This section of Up Close also includes a nice set of example images made with each of the equipment types, so you can see for yourself what each is capable of producing.
The second part of Up Close is about macro and close-up photographic technique. Focusing, use of depth of field, dealing with camera shake — all get their due in this comparatively slim part of the eBook.
Part three is about lighting for macro and close-up photography. Gibson definitely prefers natural light, but still gives a fairly complete (and commendably brand-agnostic) treatment of lighting options for your work with your camera.
The final section of the book contains case studies of work done by Mandy Disher (macro) and Celine Steen (food close-ups), along with photography tips from both of them.
All in all, Up Close is a very solid work if you’re even just toying with the idea of getting into macro or close-up photography. Gibson includes (really, emphasizes) approaches that don’t involve buying super-expensive macro-specific gear. And for $5, you don’t have much to lose.
I spotted this little guy on a bush while we were out looking at plantations in the Virginia countryside.
Given that we were primarily looking at the architecture, I’m glad I accidentally spotted him…
While I was experimenting with stock-style photography, I turned my attention to my computer’s keyboard. It’s just sitting there, can’t run away, why not? “D” and “F” are right next to each other (pity the “O” is all the way over on the other side of the keyboard), so I thought they’d be the perfect subjects for a little bokeh / DOF shot:
Green coloration added in PS Elements in honor of St. Patrick’s day…