Heading Home
four and a half minutes after sunset
Kyoto had some wonderful sunsets last month. The picture above is a crop from a shot I took from the top (fifth) floor of my building just after sunset. It doesn't look much different than the original frame, except for the size of the birds. Here's the uncropped frame...
I'd used my 200mm zoom to try to isolate the orange, and just got lucky with the birds. A couple of minutes prior, I was using my wide-angle lens and got some of the blah cityscape in there, as well as an airplane far above....
It's interesting to compare the colors of this sunset with those on my Sunset from the Ferry post. This sunset was decidedly orange, while the other one was very red. The difference perhaps was a lack of haze this time? Adding weight to that hypothesis is that you'll find even redder colors on my Sunrise, Malaysian Style post, from a morning when both the humidity and temperature were approaching 100.
Anyway, back to this shot, I was happy to have gotten that first one; I'd tried the same thing earlier in the month, and failed (the failed shot having been included on my first taste of fall colors post).
If you look carefully at the larger version of that last shot, you can see Kyoto Tower – the tallest structure in Kyoto – in the distance, to the left of center. (It also appears on the first picture of my post about Kyoto Station.)
Japanese Banknote at 35 × Magnification
A couple of months ago I posted about basics of reverse-lens Macro photography, where I showed some items photographed with some magnification that is considered fairly extreme by macro-photography standards. I threw around “true but misleading” big numbers like “45,000 ×” in jest, but in the normal nomenclature of macro photography where magnification is represented by the relative size of the object to its projection on the film or digital sensor, the photographs in that post were just a bit less than 3 × magnification. Pretty strong stuff.
I later posted an example at 5 × magnification, making the edge of a compact-flash memory card look like a cheese grater.
In today's post, macro images are at a ridiculous 34.7 × magnification.
The Setup
camera, lenses, and stuff · Flash and snoot · Reading lamp · Target Area (sort of)
(mouseover the above to highlight their location in the image)
The shot above, taken with my point-n-shoot, is not very clear, so I'll explain a bit. (Mouseover the descriptions below the caption to highlight their location in the image.)
The camera and a bunch of lenses and stuff (explained below) are attached to my tripod via a Really Right Stuff B150-B Macro Focusing Rail. The flash is mounted on a mini tabletop tripod, and because I couldn't really get it up close enough, I snooted it with some tinfoil to channel those photons – those not lost to heating the foil – right to the target area. The reading lamp was to provide light during focusing.
In the photo above, the target is a 5×7 WhiBal card, which has a little ruler sticker on it. The white part of the sticker – totally washed out in the crappy photo above – has a one-centimeter ruler on it with tiny little tickmarks demarcating each of the 10 millimeters. Here's one:
Ruler Tick
The black tickmark is 0.312mm wide, which is 0.0123 inches, or 1/81st of an inch. The full frame is 0.679mm wide. The actual sensor is 23.6mm wide, which places the magnification at 34.748 × in each dimension.
Put another way, it's equivelant to scanning at 144,805 dots per inch.
The picture above is not very clear, for a number of reasons that will become apparent as I explain the setup that went into the shot.
First let me list the equipment, from top to bottom as seen in the setup shot above and at right:
- Nikon D200 camera body
- Kenko 12mm extension tube (partially obscured by my shutter-release cable)
- Kenko 1.4 × teleconverter
- Kenko 20mm extension tube
- Kenko 2 × teleconverter
- Kenko 36mm extension tube
- Nikon BR-2A lens-reversing adapter
- Nikon BR-5 62mm adapter ring
- Adorama 77mm-62mm step-down ring
- Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 zoom lens, at 17mm, reversed
Let me say right away that I, too, recognize what I'm sure most of you instinctively know: this setup is really stupid. Fun, yes, but not at all practical. First of all, the connection on all those Kenko products are not very good, so there's a bit of play between each. Adding them all together as I did here left the lens dangling like the swinging weight of a grandfather clock. It could easily move side to size half an inch. That absurd amount of “play” is not at all conducive to image quality.
All that magnification means that you need more and more light right on target in order to be able to see anything, which meant that even when I put the bright halogen reading lamp as close to the target as possible, I still couldn't see anything through the viewfinder without opening up the lens' aperture. Even when opening it up all the way, what I could see was dim at best.
As I discussed on the reverse-lens-basics post, to open the aperture on one of these no-aperture-ring lenses, you need to gently move a small tab at the base end of the lens (which becomes the far, business end when the lens is reversed). I couldn't do this by hand because the lens was just dangling there, and the slightest touch moved the extremely small field of view (less than a millimeter!) completely off target. So, I wedged a toothpick to hold the tab open.
Even though I could now dimly see something through the viewfinder, focusing was still a challenge because of the extremely small depth of field. Really Right Stuff makes some excellent stuff (the ballhead of my tripod being simply amazing), but their B150-B focusing rack left much to be desired in this situation.
And let's face it: you can't expect much in the way of image quality when you slap together a bunch of different optical components, even if they were well and firmly connected.
So far, this is a “lose lose lose” situation, but it gets worse. Virtually nothing can be in focus when the lens is wide open, so one generally stops down all the way to increase the depth of field, but stopping down past a certain point tends to reduce sharpness due to diffraction. In this case, images at f/22 looked extremely muddy, as the tick-mark above shows. About the only thing clear in these shots is the indication that I need to clean the camera sensor.
So, to get something a bit more sharp, I need to set the aperture somewhere in the middle. It's all a rough guess based upon how I shove the toothpick between the tab and the lens mount, and anyway, once I do that I really can't see anything through the viewfinder, so it all became, in one sense of the phrase, a crapshoot. The first picture of this post is one of those that was taken with an in-the-middle-somewhere aperture, so it's much sharper than any of the others.
I really wish I had a nice picture to show here, but everything came out so muddy that it's not really worth it. I did try some pictures of a dead bug. They were gross.
In the reverse-lens-basics post I showed this picture that highlights a tiny section of a Japanese banknote:
Photographed at a bit less than 3 × magnification, that area looks like this:
Nikon D200 + reversed Sigma 30mm f/1.4 — 1/250 sec, f/16, ISO 160 — full exif
About 3× Magnification
Here's the top of that Chinese character from today's shoot:
Muddy 34.7 × Magnification
I could have probably worked harder to get a clean shot here, but with the frustrating macro rail, lack of light to focus, and a temperamental toothpick/aperture situation, I decided to call it quits for the evening.
Thanks to Zak Braverman for having loaned me the two teleconverters. I would have liked to add my own Nikon 1.7× teleconverter, but its mounting ring is designed to physically disallow connection to equipment not specifically intended to work with it. With it, I suppose I would have gotten magnification of about 60 ×, and even more muddiness.
If I ever try this again, I'll have to have a very bright light for
focusing, and, if possible, a wide-angle lens with an aperture ring that I
can use in place of the 17-55 zoom. Much more, and I'll be rivaling a
friend who runs an electron microscopy laboratory. 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — full exif
Chinese Cabbage in Fumie's Kitchen
While Fumie was cooking dinner the other day, the proportions of a Chinese cabbage (hakusai – 白菜) in the kitchen caught my eye. I thought it was beautiful, so wanted to try my hand at photographing it.
The difficulty in many aspects of photography – as in life – is knowing first what you want to accomplish, and then how to go about it. Unlike my earlier water-glass shots where I just copied someone else's setup, in this case, I had an immediate gut instinct about what I wanted to do, and, especially after having read Light — Science and Magic, I knew exactly how to approach it. The problem this time was the third step: actually putting a plan into action.
Metaphorically speaking, it's as if I knew I needed to hammer a nail into the wall, which itself should be a simple task, but in my case, all I had on hand to complete the task was a broken umbrella and a slightly-ripe banana. In photography – as in life – not having the proper tools can make an otherwise simple task gruesomely frustrating.
I got the shot I wanted, but it's almost comical how I eventually
did it...
The Setup
I knew that I wanted the light to come from above and slightly forward, and that I wanted a diffuser in between to soften the light. So, here's how it went...
I took a tray that had a slatted grill-like top and short legs, and propped it up on four up-ended tissue boxes so that it was well above the cabbage. On top of the tray I then lay a tissue, which acted as my diffuser. If I could then position the flash above the tissue and aim it down, the light would filter through and illuminate the cabbage below. From the cabbage's perspective, light would engulf it from the entire surface of the tissue, bathing it in a light that softened the harsh shadows that the bare, small flash area would normally create. But since the bulk of the light would come from above, there was enough “direction” to the light to create shadows in the many veins and ripples of the cabbage, giving it definition.
The next step was to actually get the flash up there. I didn't feel like drilling a hole in my kitchen ceiling, so I had to jury-rig something. I ended up taking a cheap tripod and attaching a lighting umbrella clamp to it, then extended the closed umbrella out from it like an arm. Onto this arm I rubber-banded my SB-800 flash unit. To keep the thing from tipping over, I had one leg in the sink and another had a heavy beanbag draped over for support. (The SB-800 was controled remotely by my Nikon D200, with its on-board flash acting in Commander Mode.)
To keep the background from being cluttered, I propped a large futon mattress well behind the cabbage. Then, to block light from “spilling” from the flash to the mattress and the counter behind the cabbage, I taped a sheet of paper onto the back edge of the flash and let it hang down to the tray. (It ended up not blocking enough light, so I eventually added a big sheet of heavy cardboard, which did the trick. Still, I wish I would have had a black cloth for the background.)
I also draped a sheet in front of the flash, as a precaution against flare from light shining directly into the camera lens.
I took a few test shots, and after adding the extra cardboard, I felt that the shadow under the cabbage was a bit too harsh for a pleasing balance, so I added some aluminum foil on the sides to reflect a bit of the wasted side light back into the scene. This filled in the shadows just a bit, and I got the result I wanted.
Not having the proper equipment turned a 10-minute task into a 45-minute task:
| Thinking about desired result | 10 | seconds |
| Thinking about the theory of how to do it | 10 | seconds |
| Actually figuring out the mechanics of doing it | 25 | minutes |
| Test shots, adjusting flash output, tinkering, final shot | 16 | minutes |
| Putting stuff away | 5 | minutes |
The moral here, of course, is that I should go out and buy a bunch of lighting equipment. The problem is that the moment something is labeled “for photographers”, they add a zero to the price, and maybe a second zero if it's for lighting. I was at a huge camera store last month and considered some $50 “photographers gloves” (gloves that allow some of the fingers easier access to camera controls), but $50 for a pair of gloves is just too much. Last week, I found the same pair of gloves for $8 at a home center, the only difference being the label.
Another example is that a cheap lighting stand to hold an off-camera flash might run $60 here, but a cheap $9 tripod can do the same task, as seen here.
Last week at the home center, I also found a bunch of small clips, stands, and bendy things intended for point-of-purchase displays (to hold price/info cards, etc.). At only a couple of bucks each, I picked up a few. They wouldn't have helped much with this shot, but I'm sure they'll come in handy some day.
I think it's about that time of year for an “Elf Yourself” post.
Elf Yourself is a cute little holiday thing kindly made available by OfficeMax, where you upload a picture of yourself, mark where in the picture your face is, and then you see yourself as an elf doing a silly dance to some Christmas music. For example, here's a link to my brother and his family (pictured above) dancing like drunken elves.
It's all quite silly, and it's really nice of OfficeMax to have made it.
But their “Terms of Use”, which were egregiously ridiculous last year, have crossed into.... well... I'm simply left speechless. “Absurd” doesn't even begin to cover it. However long it took OfficeMax engineers to build the cute little app, it must have taken their lawyers (who are apparently as drunk as the elves) 100 × longer to come up with this year's “Terms of Use.”
When you indicate that you want to upload a face, you're greeted with this innocuous little dialog:
This year's is better than last year's in that if you actually read this screen, it's pretty clear that there's more to the text than you see at first glance (a sentence being cut off in the middle being one indication). Last year, it wasn't obvious at all that there was anything more than what you initially saw.
Like last year, they can do anything they want with whatever you submit. The “GRANT OF RIGHTS” section of the Terms that spells out what rights you grant to OfficeMax is long, but boils down to “everything.” The first sentence of this section is a stunning 158 words long, but a paraphrase not billed by the word can be a bit more succinct:
| “ | You hereby grant to Company the unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual and royalty-free right to exploit in any manner whatsoever your Submission throughout the universe, in perpetuity, in any manner and for any purpose whatsoever, including for purposes of advertising. ” |
| — paraphrase of a 158-word sentence | |
In their defense, it's not all “take take take,” as they do grant something in return, although it takes a 183-word sentence to say it. Paraphrased....
| “ | Subject to your strict compliance with these Terms, Company grants you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-commercial, revocable, non-assignable and non-transferable license to play a single copy of the Web Site Content. ” |
| — paraphrase of a 183-word sentence | |
It might not sound like much, but hey, they're saying that you can Elf Yourself, which is the whole point. I'm not sure whether it's worth subjecting your face (and whatever else is in the photo you upload) to being the main feature in, say, a hemorrhoid commercial, but you have to allow for that because the contract does.
It's also interesting that tucked into this contract is a sweeping liability release, such that if years later you happen to be strolling through an OfficeMax store and a safe falls from a shelf and hits you on the head, you're limited to at most $50 in compensation.
Anyway, if you decide to read the whole contract, you'd best be comfy, because it'll take a long, long time. 20+ screens worth of lawyerly gobbledygook. For your convenience, I've reproduced it at right as one uninterrupted view (the making of which involved 45 screen captures, and an hour in Photoshop). I've also included it below.
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One of the tallest buildings around here is the 38-story “Otsu Mary” building in Otsu City, Japan, over the small mountains to Kyoto's east. Zak lives near there, so I've seen it from outside many times, but got a chance to go inside today while accompanying him and his family to a small dinner gathering.
Here's a picture I happened to have taken earlier in the fall from the aforementioned mountains that shows the six-year-old building...
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 135mm — 1/350 sec, f/7.1, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
38-Story “Otsu Mary”
The dinner was on the 27th floor, so I thought we'd be treated to some nice views, but the big surprise was to find out that it's hollow.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/80 sec, f/2.8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Inside Looking Up
The picture above is taken from the same place that Zak is standing in the shot below.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/20 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Zak Putting his Wide Angle to Good Use
The bottom of the hollow area is filled with water, with a gazebo in the middle. The gazebo would have been a perfect place to take a straight-up picture if it weren't for its roof being in the way. So, about the only place to get a nice shot looking up is to shimmy out the edge of the pool with your back against the outside of an elevator shaft.
In the shot above, Anthony looks on from the lobby window.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/50 sec, f/2.8, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Somewhere
There are 587 units in the building, and it wouldn't surprise me if the cleaning lady (in pink, just left of center in the shot above) feels that she's dusting the same railing all day. At least she doesn't have to do it alone; when I took this shot, there was another lady in pink several floors above her, just out of frame to the left.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/80 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looking Down from the 38th Floor
We visited the top, of course, and enjoyed the photographic opportunities. I'm fine with heights so long as I'm not leaning directly over, so I was just a tat uneasy while taking the shot above.
Looking down, you can see the gazebo roof in the middle, with the reflection from the water around it. The column running halfway up the center is the elevator shaft mentioned earlier, which serves just the lower 16 floors. (Other elevators serve other sets of floors, of course.)
I see online that there's a grand unit for sale on the 37th floor. It's a regal 1,730 square feet, and at today's exchange rate, runs about $675,000.
Nikon D200 + 10-20mm f/4-5.6 @ 10mm — 1/40 sec, f/4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
View with Zak's 10mm Wide Angle
Nikon D200 + 10-20mm f/4-5.6 @ 10mm — 1/45 sec, f/4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Angles from a Different Angle
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/30 sec, f/2.8, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Photography from the 27th Floor
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 45mm — 1/40 sec, f/2.8, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Gazebo and Water