So for a little fun I thought I'd play with the long lens. The damn thing was expensive, so I should get some value out of it, especially when it's far too cold outside to go play.
It's no secret that I have some interest in macro photography, but with no macro lens, I have no choice but to play with (what I like to refer to as) "The Beast". 500mm of zoomy goodness.
I have no display case or prop holder to place items on to, so it was the back of a Christmas card with a couple of crumpled bits of cardboard to elevate the back of the coin slightly, then up on the tripod the camera, Beast and flash went.
Focusing was much more challenging than I expected, but of course it just took a bit of play. Auto was useless, so I played with bouncing the flash off the ceiling, off the wall behind, then then full on. Off the ceiling was best, and that produced these images. Nothing spectacular but somewhat interesting when you zoom right in.
I look forward to buying a macro lens at some point. I would have liked to have pointed the camera directly at the floor, but with the tripod legs fully extended, and the lens at minimum magnification, it was still too close to focus. Anyway, it was a learning experience.
I did learn a few things out of the experience; a) buy an eye-pleasing background b) make sure it is clean of any cat fluff, c) higher f-stop would have helped greatly to keep details crisp as you can clearly tell my focus point was on "dollar" in the loonie and therefore "Canada" is slightly blurred. Lessons learned. Onward.
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2013-01-31 Update
I bought a true macro lens (Canon 100mm 2.8 L) and played a bit more. The one thing I learned is this however. When taking shots at extremely close range, a macro light is required. A flashlight and overhead spots are simply not up to the task as everything either casts a significant shadow, or additional lights create too much of an effect on the contours of the subject.
What is difficult to believe is these are the exact same two coins used in the original test. The macro lens reveals far more detail and really displays all of the scratches and imperfections on the coins.