Table top Photography

[hms]

Hello everyone,

I am just getting started with my new S2. Primarily, I take photos for my web sites however, I am now starting a paper catalog. After lots of comparitive shoping and several visits to this forum, I decided that this would be a great studio camera for my needs.

My first lens is a Sigma 20mm F1.4. I am considering the Nikon 17-35mm F2.8. The field of macro lenses for these cameras (digital 35s) seems a little limited. Does anyone have any thoughts on this subject. What is the perfect lens for photographing high end edge tools? I am also planing to mount this on my trinocular microscope and control it with my ibook. I have been using a Sony CD1000 for this but, the resolution has been disapointing. I am looking for some major improvements here!

[memobug]

How big are the high-end edge tools, and what is the working distance?

Regards,

Matt

[hms]

Our tools range from small plane blades that are a few centimeters to axes that are 1m in length. I usually try to shoot full size pictures of the tools and close detail work. You can see my work at http://www.japanesetools.com The "Tasai" folder has some close work

thanks Matt

[memobug]

Nikon's 85 looks like it would be a little long. The lens you probably want hasn't been made yet, at least not by Nikon. There is a Ukrainian lens called a Kiev 35mmPCS that is very difficult to mount, but the aspect is very good for this type of photography.

http://www.kievcamera.com/camera.php?ID=17

It becomes a normal perspective on an S2 (35mm x 1.5->52mm)

Unfortunately their quality control is not very good, so one lens could be very good and another, who knows? The mounting problem is because there is no prism relief space, so to get the lens on you have to hold lens and camera together and turn the locking nut... and it's completely uncoupled metering.

BTW and off topic - hey - look at this: 8mm!

http://www.kievcamera.com/camera.php?ID=14

Regards,

Matt

[hms]

That 8 mm is something. It was my impression too that the perfect lens is not out there yet. I'm still looking at the Nikon 17-35 F2.8. The Sigma 20mm F1.4 can focus really close and it seems to perform well inside my tent. I use a hanging tent to soften up my lights. I still haven't figured out what lens I'm going to use with my microscope. I use a low power .5x to 120x zoom microscope on a boom. The adapter at the eye piece is 52 mm. I'm trying to photograph microscopically sharp edges and scratch patterns from sharpening stones. I'm considering a 105mm macro lens.

table top photography is proving to be very challenging, are there any good books or web sites on the subject?

thanks

[Tom V]

I find myself using my Nikkor 50mm ƒ1.8 lens quite often for product photography. If the item is larger, and I can't back up any more (the studio tends to get cramped), I use my Nikkor 24mm ƒ2.8 or Nikkor 35~70mm ƒ2.8. . I sometimes think a 28mm would be perfect for my studio size and typical product size. For really small stuff, I use my Nikkor 105mm Micro.

I don't think it would be worth the bother (metering, focus, and settings) and expense of having a Perspective Control (PC) lens. There are plenty of ways of getting the product to look good perspective-wise, and in the depth of field; either in the camera or the computer.

Most catalogs and magazine print at 150 lines per inch (the halftone screen ruling), so the S2 has the capability of creating some large files for the catalog. It can easily make a good sharp image that will fill a page or spread. Traditionally, the factor for image resolution to screen resolution was 2:1, in other words, you had to save your images at 300 dpi to print in a magazine at 150 lpi. This tradition was developed in the far past when images were scanned into the computer. Now that cameras make direct digital images, the factor is more like 1.5:1, simply because the camera's digital image is much sharper than all but the best scanners' results.

[hms]

Thanks for your replys,
I couldn't help myself, went out and brought home a very nice piece of glass last night. I spent about 4 hours in my tent last night and another 7 today. Had lots of fun. The Nikon is very crisp, definately the best results I've had so far. I set up the shooting software with the S2 in the tent on a tripod. I took shot after shot with every combination of settings that I could arrange. When I was a kid with my range finder, I used to take notes for all my photos and then compare them with the results. This is just too cool, instant gratification.

Well, it wasn't all perfect. After converting the raw files in the EX program, I was a little shocked. Everything seemed underexposed in Photoshop. The detail is great but what looked perfect on my ibook was way dark on the G4. I think you just can't trust the preview on the laptop. It looks like the ibook will make a great hard drive though! I'll keep at it and see if I can find the problem, it might be the color space?

Tom, is that lens you mentioned 105 mm "micro" or macro. Can you tell me how you like it?

Thanks

[Tom V]

I bought a AF Micro Nikkor 105mm ƒ2.8D lens. Nikon calls it a "Micro," as they do with all their other macro lenses. What any difference is between Micro and Macro would mean, I don't know. In my book, it works the way I expect a Macro lens to work.

It can shoot to 1:1 magnification without an adapter. It has a FULL/LIMIT switch which can lock out half of the focusing range. (So if you are taking portraits with it, and it does a focus hunt, it doesn't have to rack the focus all the way to lifesize before going back to a reasonable distance, OR, it doesn't try to focus at infinity when you are shooting tiny close-up subjects.) It stops down to ƒ32, has a virtual built-in lens shade (the lens is recessed quite a bit) and uses 52mm filters.

I like it a lot. It is sharp. It is sturdy. I have no complaints whatsoever.

I would also consider the Nikkor 60mm Micro for use on the digital camera. It would give a nice 90mm perspective (60mm X 1.5) and shoot close.

[hms]

Thanks Tom,

That 60mm micro lens sounds like just what I'm looking for. I hope it also has a 52mm filter so it will go right on my microscope. Posted my first shots with the S2 last night, I'm happy with the detail but, I've got a lot to learn about exposure.

[Topngu]

On the lens show 32 f stop but if you work with 1:1 you can dial
up to f 54....! using "A" mode