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I love seeing God in nature: from the grandeur of towering mountains to the exquisiteness of a tiny snowflake. The perpetual flurrying snow of this winter made me stop and consider the individuality of these little crystals. Borrowing my dad’s 60mm prime and catching a few flakes on a cold mirror, I was amazed at what I saw!
I was drawn to take these shots primarily out of wonder at God’s creation, but I also hope to use them in a future project. The photos’ small size is a bit of a drawback for that. More recently I tried reversing my 18-55, but the weather had warmed up to just below 0 Celsius, so the snowflakes melted before I could shoot them.
Any thoughts on how to improve? And any suggestions on how to shoot these miniscule gems using the equipment to which I have access (18-55mm; 18-105mm; 60mm’)? Thanks in advance!
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I presume that these pictures you posted here were taken with the 60mm then? Just curious, how did you go about taking these shots? From the shutter speed used, I can tell that they certainly weren’t hand-held! Did you use a tripod?
In regards to getting better results, you might try “opening up” to f/8-f/11 or so. According to Ken Rockwell, the diffraction limited aperture of the Nikon 60mm Micro is f/11. (Note: That is for the AF-S version, but I would guess it’s about the same for the AF-D)
If you have the AF-D version, an inexpensive way to get more magnification is to use extension tubes. Note that if you own the AF-S lens, you’ll lose all electronic functions, AF, and aperture control. I think you can buy extension tubes which will let you keep the electrical connections, but they are quite expensive, and as I’ve never used Nikon, I don’t have any idea how well they work. I think your best option is a 60mm AF-D with extension tubes, and if that’s not enough, buy a cheap 28mm lens and reverse it on the end of that! An 18-55 kit lens probably won’t work very well, because you can’t control the aperture, but don’t let me discourage you; do some experimenting and prove me wrong!
I was just testing out some “new” lenses recently. I used some pollen from an Easter lily and some table salt to test for sharpness, magnification, etc. If you take a glass casserole dish and invert it on a table, you can shine a light up through it and use that for testing your setup. Just put a few grains of salt/sugar on the glass, and see what you can come up with! I attached a few pictures that I got the other day, just for your inspiration. As near as I can calculate, both of those pictures have ~7:1 magnification. The first one is a grain of raw sugar, the second is pollen from an Easter lily. The image of the sugar is uncropped, so it actually does almost fill the frame!
I personally use a combination of extension tubes, prime lenses, and reversed lenses! Here’s a picture of my setup on Google+. There are several examples of snowflake photos taken with that setup here on Lenspiration, and there are many more on my Google+ account.
Keep trying! You’re already doing a lot better than I did when I first started taking snowflake pictures! Here is one of my very earliest attempts…
As you can see, I forgot to turn down the ISO, I think it was at ISO 800, which is way too high for a little point-and-shoot camera.
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Yes, I used the 60mm macro lens and a tripod. I caught the snowflakes on a hand-held mirror and positioned the camera almost directly over that so that the reflection of the lens made a black background.
Thanks for the casserole dish idea. I hadn’t thought of substituting my own lighting; I had to use a slow shutter speed in order to catch enough of the overcast sunset light. Great thought. I’m going to try that. Though unless we get the 2″ of snow predicted for Thursday, more snowflakes photos will have to wait until next winter. Shooting something unmeltable sounds like a great way to practise!
If you need some inspiration, here’s a picture that I’d like to replicate some day… https://www.donkom.ca/salt-grains/ This guy used a macro ring flash though, so he has a lot more flexibility for lighting and shutter speeds than I possible could. Plus, he’s a photoshop guru, so he can “just stack 58 frames” to get that shot.
I tested out my “new” lens at a normal focal length also, it’s a 50mm f/1.7, and the DOF is simply astounding! I’m thinking that macro photography is more along my lines of interest than “landscape” or other similar genres.
Hopefully you’ll get a chance at some more snow before it warms up too much! I’m afraid we’re already past that stage, it’s been raining quite a bit here.
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Nice flower picture (azalea? I’m not great with flowers). It reminds me of a photo of a forget-me-not I took last year on my dad’s 60mm f/2.8.
OK. I tried. We did get the predicted snow, but the temperature was hovering around freezing, making the flakes melt rather quickly. Nevertheless, I rigged up my camera using Popsicle sticks and baling tape and went out. (Pic 1) Like you said, the aperture can no longer be controlled from the camera, however it can be controlled manually. I set it at nearly all the way open. (The white tape on the front end of the lens is holding it in place.) I was delighted to be able to get so close in to the snowflakes (Pic 2 is not cropped), but was disappointed at the lack of sharpness. My older brother across town tried too with the same lens and with the same result. But I think we got it figured out. Another brother joined in our discussion and after doing a bit of math, we discovered that by reversing our lens, we were using only about 1/100 of the glass. No surprise that the quality isn’t quite as good! Actually given that fact, the amount of sharpness is amazing.
So I’m going to try making an extension tube for the 60mm macro. I have a piece of PVC that might work and if I can carve it out just right, may even be able to be mounted on my camera. We’ll see…
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Good Job! Did you use your mirror again, or did you figure out some other way of “catching” them?
By far the most important thing with “super macro” stuff like this is stability. Everything has got to be rock-solid, or the picture is ruined. Even the act of depressing the shutter button is enough to completely blur the picture. The simplest way to get around that is to use your self-timer set to 2 seconds. That gives you enough time after pressing the shutter button for the vibrations to stop before the picture is taken. Or, if you want to be even more advanced, you invest in a cheap wireless remote. A wired one is better than nothing, but you’d be surprised how much movement can be transferred through a wire. A wireless remote doesn’t cost
anymuch more than a wired one, so it’s really a no-brainer! (I paid $18.00 for mine, and they’re still about the same price.)Keep us posted on how your “extension tubes” turn out! While PVC works very well for testing, I imagine that a $13 set of cheap extension tubes will pay for themselves pretty quickly. They make things a lot sturdier, and eliminate problems like light leaks.
Also, it is possible to buy a reversing ring that will take care of the same problems with light leaks and stability. You screw the adapter into your lens’s filter ring, then mount the adapter on your camera like you would any other lens. It’s actually quite easy! Sorry if this just sounds like a sales pitch, you would think Amazon was paying me to advertise for them! I’ve used all these accessories, so I know how handy they can be, that’s why I recommend them! And it’s not like they’re really expensive either. 🙂
One good thing about using only 1/100th of the lens… At least you’re using the sharpest part of it! Most lenses are the sharpest in the center of the frame, so you’re getting the best possible sharpness there, as far as that is concerned.
No, I didn’t use the mirror this time because it wasn’t cold enough. (The snow would was melting almost as soon as it touched any object other than more snow.) I just shot from below the balcony rail with the sky as background. And, yes, I try always to use a tripod and a 2-second delay for snowflakes.
I didn’t know you could get extension tubes that inexpensively. The ones I saw were so pricey I wouldn’t even consider them, especially given their limited use. Anyway, I succeeded in making an extension tube from PVC. It wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated – PVC is quite easy to carve. There are no snowflakes anymore… 🙁 But I did come across some maple sugar crystals. All my pictures with the extender so far have been hand held, so raising the f-stop (manually) wasn’t possible. When I have some time, I’ll do a setup with a tripod. I think it is actually going to work! I’m thrilled. Looking closer into God’s creation is amazing!
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Wow, good job! You’re braver than I am, I don’t think I would try sticking a piece of PVC in my camera when I could get a $6.00 accessory that would do the trick! Keep trying! I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be able to get some decent shots of snowflakes with that setup. (That is, if it ever snows again… 🙂 ) The way the weather is right now, snow would be a dream come true, compared to 90°F!
You asked the right person, @FrazerFamily! @buddingphotographer holds a lot of experience when it comes to snowflakes. I’ve greatly enjoyed reading this thread.
The dark background creates excellent contrast. If there’s a way to create that same jet-black background without the snowflake reflection causing a sort of white shadow, that would make the snowflake look a whole lot more crisp.
It never ceases to amaze me the complexity and detail of the things God made!
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