Close up with Vivitar 90mm/f2.5 MD

[sury]

In my thread on 100-900 on a crop of an image, DK mentioned that I would have a better luck with an adapter without glass. three weeks later after $20 on eBay, my noGlass adapter has arrived from Hongkong. Here are some examples from my experiment. Any suggestions or tips and comments are most appreciated. These are straight from the camera and no PP what so ever was done.

With best regards,
Sury

[Mort Lives]

As a newbie it is only right that I should be at the end of the topic reply queue. To my untrained eye those shots look pretty darned good...............but I just appreciate good pics and I'm not good enough to be very techie. I'd be delighted to have produced those straight out of the camera. Straight out of the camera is the real deal. Spending hours manipulating images is cheating in my book; why not just produce them on-screen and save the hassle of using a camera ?

End of mini-rant. I like your 'photo's. Well done.

[Javelin]

That lens has a good reputation and it sure looks sharp enough. the glassless adaptor was a good idea. do you have the 1:1 adaptor?

These pictures are alright, they show how sharp the lens can be, my only comment is about composition. you should try larger apertures to isolate more the details you want to be the subject of the photo. The first one for example the focus was on one of the flower petals when I wish it was more concentrated on the middle of the flower or even a tight crop of a detail. Also I think the flash is a little too harsh and is causing deep shadows too which are distrating.

About the no post processing comment. well there is no such thing as a non processed picture. wether the camera does it with automatic settings/ user presets or you process it manually from RAW. all pictures are post processed. Frankly film for the last 40 years is mostly post processed to and I imagine it'll stay that way until the shot of the lake leaks on your floor and the candle shot burns your fingers these are all artificial reporoductions of what you saw. There is no recording medium that will record what you saw without having some method of asking you if this is what you saw and tools to adjust it until it does match what you saw.. or what you remember you saw. Peoples memories of a scene are often more vivid than the scene could posibbly be

[sury]

Mort lives,
Thank you for your kind words. Much appreciated.

Javelin,
Yes, I do have 1:1 adapter. I will try to use it later. I just came back from a business trip and missed these two postings.
As for your feed back on compositions, I will try to keep the composition in mind. I have been trying the macros around f/16,
f/18 above. I should give it a try at wider values.
Regarding my comment about PP, all I meant was that no further manipulation outside the camera was performed. I believe that is what no PP came about to imply. But I could be wrong.

With best regards,
Sury

[Steve4D]

Hi Sury,

If your intention was to demonstrate the capability of your new adapter and Vivitar MD lens combo, then you have certainly shown that it is very capable of producing a great close-up. If you like doing close-up work and you have a good adapter, then there are some great bargains to be found in MD lenses - some of the faster ones are still fetching good prices.

Along the way, I have acquired two 'glassed' MD adapters; however I did not go much further than checking that they worked on my a100 with three average MD lenses, that I have since sold. In my opinion, the ability to use older MD lenses on Sony DSLRs is welcomed and especially in macro/close-up work, however not for me for general shooting.

Even though ALL of the functions on the camera's that I first held in my hand were set manually, the ability to use the available technology in today's DSLRs has definitely spoilt me in this regard. Macro work however is an all together a different matter, because when you are that close to your subject manually setting up the exposure is a good thing to do, and if shooting without a tripod moving the camera can work better that trying to use the focus ring on the lens?

As commented on by others, I find one of the most challenging aspects of close-up work is establishing exactly what your subject is going to be. In regard to flowers; is it the entire flower or only a particular part of the flower? Once you have established your subject, then you can compose the shot accordingly. Flowers with lots of depth in the blossom, such as those you chose to capture, I find are more difficult to compose than those with a shallower depth in the blossom such as a daisy or a sunflower?

I also find that DOF and bokeh considerations can be challenging when selecting which aperture setting to use for close-up work. The great thing with close-up work is that your subject is usually static and that means that you can generally move it and/or yourself around.

Thanks for posting, you have encouraged me to start looking at some good MD glass and maybe one of those glassless adapters too....Please post some more with that new combo of yours....

Regards Steve

[Dr. Harout]

And a big hello to Steve for his first post.

[Steve4D]

Thank you for your warm welcome.....

[sury]

Steve4D,
Thank you. My blind spot always has been one of composition. Lacking that artistic ability to visualize a composition,
I was always eager to get pointers hence my requests for feed back. I know it is something intrinsic, but I am hoping
that developing an appreciation, I can pick up a thing or two.


One below is an example of with glass adapter using a Vivitar 35-85 MD lens on A900. The image below is a crop, NOT a macro, and attests to the fact that when we have few pixels to spare, we can get some macro like shots. One does not need to have a glass less adapter though I am getting better macros with glass less adapter. The second example is with Vivitar 90mm/f2.5 macro lens on A900. Hopefully these illustrate that one can use glass less or with glass adapter get decent results.

With best regards,
Sury

Vivitar 35-85/f2.8 With glass adapter.



With Vivitar 90/f2.5 with glass adapter.

[Javelin]

that lens sure seems to be a good combination! and I really like the second pic too. the colour is very nice

[sury]

I haven't been able to use the 1:1 converter effectively. I could not figure out so far how to use it yet.
Any ideas?

Sury