Real successor of 35mm film

A few days ago I read a rumour on Nikonrumors.com
http://nikonrumors.com/2009/10/16/its-a-nikon-patents-friday-nikon-mirrorless-interchangeable-lens-camera.aspx

Nikon is patenting for a mirrorless small sensor camera with interchangable lenses! If the rumour holds true, then I'll assure you that we are in for a treat!! For so long I wished for a system with sensor not much larger than most of the superzoom point and shoots. Imagine the vast compatibility of the lenses!! and the 2.5x crop is just amazing!! 300mm will be 750mm!! and it will be so small and light!! and may be less expensive too!! It will be ideal for me for trekking and mountaineering as well as for birding! If the IQ is good enough for 12x18" prints and if ISO400 is usable, then it will definitely find more takers. In terms of the image quality, it will be equivalent to the 35mm film. (35mm FF DSLRs are already gving quality equivalent to that of medium format film. And Medium format Digital is giving IQ of Large format film).

Hope they add a video mode as well (mirrorless, therefore easy) and add real speed to it. They can make it pro too, like the RED. I've read Sony is planning something similar. I think this is what the future is going to be. Bye Bye mirrors! and heavy cameras! A real advancement in technology! True successors of 35mm film are here!

Vertoramas

I have seen, for countless number of times, panoramic shots of beautiful mountains or sea shores. While they are good to look at, they somehow don’t impress me. I feel they are largely unbalanced. They always seem to be cropped and mind seeks for the elements which it thinks have been sacrificed for the panoramic composition. Panoramas, in my opinion, look good only if they are not excessively long and when they are printed in a large print and put on display. Otherwise, they look too tiny to look at, especially on the tiny monitor. A few months ago, when I became interested in landscape photography, I read about view cameras and subsequently got introduced to the square format. It suddenly struck a chord with me. I found it the simplest to compose and solidly balanced to view. It works well not only for landscapes but for other genres as well like bird or butterfly portraits. One important point is that it looks different from the zillions of 3:2s and 4:3s and the panoramas and makes the image stand out. It gives a whole new perspective to compose images.
Obviously, my initial thought was to crop the 3:2 photos into 1:1. But that makes me loose the resolution of an already modest camera (a 5MP Coolpix). Fortunately, I found a workaround. While exploring landscape photographers, I came across Darwin Wiggetts. Not only is he a master at capturing majestic landscapes, but he also uses tilt shift lenses for most of his work. He takes two horizontal images by shifting the lens and then stitches them together in a square format. Unfortunately, I don’t have resources for such investment. Hence, I decided to give it a shot using a friend’s Nikon Coolpix L10.

What I simply do is look for a good composition, do a little previsualization so that you know what your image would look like. I usually take 2 or at the most 3 horizontal images in vertical movement. As I don’t use tripod, I have to ensure that there is enough overlap in the images so that they’ll get easily stitched. To ensure this, I use the grid lines in the LCD. I start with the foreground first as I find it difficult to capture than the background. Then I move the camera a little upwards (assisted by the gridlines) so that 1/3rd of the image gets overlapped. The camera settings are automatic (it doesn’t have manual controls!). It is often suggested the camera should be set on manual mode and the exposure should not be changed during the panoramic shoot. For vertoramas, I find, it works better the other way round. Giving correct exposures to both the images ensure that foreground as well as the background is well exposed. By applying layer masks, both foreground was well as the background can be seen as neatly exposed in the final image. This negates the need of the graduated neutral density filters, exposure bracketing, HDR etc. The widest FOV from the L10 is that of a 35mm lens. Still, I find stitching two images is sufficient for most of the times. Additionally, it gives me that magical square format.

The Foreground shot

The Background shot

Once home, I open these two images in a freeware Microsoft ICE (Yes, you are reading Freeware and Microsoft in the same line!). ICE stands for Image Compose Editor. Simply opening the images in ICE is enough. They get stitched by default. ICE has three menus: Stitch, Crop and Export. Various kinds of camera motions are considered by the software when the images are opened. It chooses the one it finds the best. Sometimes, if I wish to change the perspective, I feed in Rotating Motion. This lets me change the Projection (distortion and the perspective). Once the images get stitched, I rarely have to crop the images as they were fore planned. Then I do post processing in the form of enhancing the levels, curves, colour balance, hue and saturation. If there are any blown out highlights, I increase the levels of Black of the White colour in the Selective Colouring. Sometimes, I use the gradient tool to get the graduated neutral density filter effect.

Both images opened in Microsoft ICE.

Final Image after post processing

A few more Vertoramas:

Torna

Torna again

Sometimes, we can go the other way round. Take horizontal panoramas keeping the camera vertical. This again gives a massive resolution to the image and also gives it more height.

An example of a panorama taken from multiple images in horizontal orientation

To give justice to vertoramas, you need to print them really big. Atleast 18"x18" (or whatever the aspect ratio is) + border + frame and put it high on display. The reason is there is tremndous amount of data captured in the image and it will simply go unnoticed. Don't worry about printing at 300dpi. I've printed a few at 150dpi and they look pretty cool. One of the most appreciated photo at my father's office is a 8x12" frame of Naukuchiatal taken by a 2 MP cellphone. Resolution, sharpness the matter the most only on internet forums. For a landscape its the light, the colours and the composition which matters period. You might notice that my images are a little extra saturated. The reason is the prints I have made till now have lacked saturation. Hence I increase it in the image so that the prints do fine.

My landscape photography is evolving rapidly. I shall further experiment with many other techniques to get the images I want. For now atleast, Vertorama provides me a great hand to capture the Sahyadri.

Side Effects of Photography and the rehabilitation process

NOTE: The side effects I'll be highlighting are exclusive of the miniscule bank balance that photographers usually have.

I started photography in May 2007, when I received my 1st camera: Sony Ericsson W810i Camera phone featuring a solid 2 MP camera. Before that, I used to lot of extra-curricular activities like trekking, going outdoors for camps, trails; reading fantasies, fiction etc; playing mandolin, listening/searching for new genres of music; playing volleyball, watching good movies, spending time with my friends and spending special time with special friends. And of course, the day before the exams used to be spent studying. SLowly slowly, things started changing as I got more hooked on to photography. It began with liking the photos, then searching for better cameras, finding shops, finding better shops, reading reviews, reading about the photographers, watching photographs, learning photoshops, participating in the forums, asking queries, answering queries, teaching photography to a few, getting paid :) and lastly taking photos, segregating them, editing the good ones, posting them on the web, receiving C n C. And finally writing about the entire experience. I'm not talking about the blog alone. I'm on my 7th notebook (dedicated to photography) at present!

Well, since a few days, I've become increasingly conscious that I am spending way too much time on photography than what is needed to create good looking pictures. This realization is especially bitter coz at present I don't own a camera!!! I use a friend's Olympus 570uz and a superb Nikon L10 (donated by a friend). All of a sudden I realized what I was missing..Since then, I've been trying to make up for the loss. I've decided to trek the Sahyadri in such a way that would give maximum output. So I've started trekking with a few friends. Visited Kaas Plateau, Purander, Torna aand Harishchandragad. I try to document as much of the nature as I can. I've gotten hold of really handy instruments like GPS, water quality test kit, clinometer campass to document the geology and hydrogeology of the area (I'm not that good at this, but kaam ho jata hai). Then I try to observe and document the odonates and the butterflies, birds, wildflowers, the trees and also the socio-economic and cultural scence. This way, I make maximum use of time, place and myself! I hope someday I can put these treks together into a series of papers or something of that sort.

As I decided to review my old hobbies, I started by reading Congo and and later on, His Dark Material trilogy. Both are fantastic. While Congo is full of suspense, I have to admit that it didn't surprise me. I kind of expected shocks at every page, if not at every line. After all, it is a Michael Chrichton book. It does shock you ( It has to!). But what sets him apart from others is the way he reason things, people, situations and of course the concepts. A true genius. I plan to write exclusively about him some other time, so this will do for now. The other one I read, His Dark Materials, is a trilogy consisting of Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. Again, a work of a genius. I would have ridiculed even God if he had said I would like a fantasy tale more than LOTR. But well, His Dark Materials, I find, is better (This is debatable, UMMV-Ur milage mey vary). It is fast, interesting and keeps you focussed. THe best part I liked about the trilogy is, again, the way it has been written. Pullman is a master at describing feelings. Especially of the little ones (Harry Potter, suddenly, seems so grown up! even in the 1st book!!). You feel so much involved with the characters. YOu actually start believing in them. Though it is a fantasy and has plenty of adventures, it has a love story which I loved the most. You will cry buckets before you keep this book back to the shelf. This is possible only if that child inside you is still alive. Else you'll find this, like everything else around you, childish. Oh one more thing: These books (HDM) are out and out against christanity. THe God is a villain here. Strangly, it is said the story was inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost. The Title has been taken from the same.

Now, there is apile of books to be read on my desk. On top lies The Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy. I've seen and like the movie. The book, however, can wait. I've dug out the Man Eaters of Kumaon. I don't remember how many times I've read it. Every time is a new experience. Just finished reading the story of Robin, Corbett's dog. I shall write more about the book later on.

One weekend was spent on Tarantino movies. Reservior dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill 1 and 2. Of course I had seen them before. But to get the feel (and to pass the time), I decided to watch them at a stretch. I'll write more about movies later.

I've decided to take music seriously. Till now, I've been trying hard to learn mandolin on my own. I play considerably well too. But I struggle with just too many things. finding rhythem, tuning (GDAE for western and p'sa'p'sa' for Indian..How I wish to play all genres with GDAE!), notes (its all guesswork here!), left hand technique (This is the left handed equivalent of the Right hand technique), tremolo, crosspicking, trying to listen to Bluegrass (even dreaming of playing it is difficult!) etc etc etc.. Now I've decided to stop this Eklayvagiri. A friend just gave me a contact of some mandolin teacher. Hopefully, he'll guide me from here on..

Apart from all these activities, I increased my social attendance. I'v met interesting people. Rightly guessed the sun signs of a few (they always get freaked out, don't they?). Such solutions, by default came with less time being spent on photography. In fact there were days when I didn't even think of camera!

Bottomline: While trying to get out of an addiction, don't give a damn to that addiction. Instead, give more importance/prominance to the alternatives. They, surely are equally interesting. And addictive.

Field experience- Canon 450D and 55-250/5.6 IS

First of all, this is NOT a review of any sort, not even a field test. I am merely sharing my experience with the Canon system in general and 450D and 55-250 IS lens in particular.

Dawn over Kaziranga

Recently, I had an opportunity to try out the kit at Kaziranga National Park, Assam. Though we stayed in the park for only two days and were 'inside' the park for only 3-4 hours, We saw a great deal of wildlife.

One-horned Rhino, Kaziranga National Park

The 450D felt very comfortable in my hands. It felt lot lighter than my Pentax K10D and I liked this fact. Its viewfinder was somewhat darker than K10D, but I didn't have much issue in focusing manually. Its LCD was bigger than K10D but was little confusing. Image looked very dark in the LCD than on monitor. I never used the Live view mode. The very fact that I have to go through settings to change from LV to VF mode didn't impress me at all..(please let me know if there are any shortcuts to do so)..

I liked the dedicated ISO button in the 450D. It enabled rapid change of ISOs as and when I needed and I needed to change ISO very frequently. Auto focus operation was super quiet. almost SILENT. Focus was fairly quick too. The fact that it was so silent also made it appear even more quick. Coming from manual-focus-lenses background, this was the first AF tele (provided you call 250mm a tele. On APS-C, it certainly is.) I ever used and I was in awe of the AF to say the least. Initially, I had difficulty in shooting birds in flight with the combo but soon learnt the beauty of Al-servo and the central cross-hair AF point. I could effortlessly track every bird I was able to get inside the frame. Once again, I was limited by my own self. IQ wise, 450D was excellent. I used it most of the times at ISO 800 and at times at ISO 1600. Seriously, there are many things which we hear on forums and reviews which are to be simply forgotten during actual field work. High ISO is one of them. How am I to avoid ISO 1600 if the camera meter shows 2" even at ISO 1600, wide open? Many times I had to use EV to increase shutter speed by increasing ISO even further. Here I wished Canon had 5 stops of EV instead of 2. Especially considering the over- exposure Canon bodies normally cause. This brings us to the only serious issue I had with Canon system- the one which cost me at least half a dozen of well taken images- WASHED HIGHLIGHTS. I had heard from most of the Canon users that Canon bodies over expose slightly and hence, one should keep the EV at -2/3. I invariably had to keep it from -2/3 to -2! Being a user of Pentax, which is (in)famous for underexposed images, I was never bothered by washed highlights before this and I didn't even know it until I saw the images on monitor. Damn. I had to shoot jepg because there weren't many memory cards provided with the camera and we hadn't taken laptops for security reasons. The images had appeared darker in the LCD which refrained me from using extreme negative EV. I think shooting RAW would have solved the problem. Thus, this in no way count against the camera as I should have, following John Shaw's guidelines, calibrated the meter before use or at least shot in RAW.. I didn't fiddle with the camera much and used it only in the field. Hence, I'm sure there are many more tit-bits which I don't know of.

Tusker, Kaziranga: Plenty of washed highlights in this image, toned downed a bit.

Overall, I liked the camera but is it worth 38k? certainly not. I won't give more than 20k for it or any camera in this class, especially when one can get a 40D for 39k. I used the 450D exclusively with the 55-250IS lens even though I was provided with the 18-55IS lens. 55mm is wide enough for most of the landscape shots I usually take on field. However, I think ideal focal length for the job would have been an image stabilized 28-300/5.6 or a 35-350/5.6..I would have preferred the latter. Canon did make these lenses, but they were too expensive and heavy for the target users and purpose they fulfilled. All shots of birds were taken at 250mm. Mammals required the lower focal lengths. IS was God sent. It gave me sharp images at 5.25 stops more than the normal shutter speed when I shot at the wider end of the lens. At tele end, I could get about 2.5- 3 stops advantage. IS clearly substituted tripod at least for this tour. Of course there were opportunities which only tripod could have taken, but they weren't many. I am planning to buy this lens and a used 400D.

People asked if 250mm is enough? Well, I performed a simple exercise- I used Juza's focal length calculator with references being 250mm on a 10 MP Canon APS-C slr and a 720 X 480 canvas. With the help of this calculator I found out that if I crop a 10 MP image to 7 MP, I will get a field of view (FOV) of a 300mm lens. Similarly, I will get FOV of 400mm, 500mm and 600mm lenses if I crop the image to 4 MP, 2.5 MP and 1.7 MP. I know 1.7 MP sounds too small. But I mave made excellent 12 X 8 prints of images as small as 1.26 MP. My only concern is of IQ. Yes, IQ isn't the best at f5.6 but improves dramatically through f8 and finally at f11. In Pune, the weather is mostly sunny and I am able to usually shoot at f11-16. Its weight is perfect for my needs- a light weight, in-expensive lens which would remain with me 24/7. Add the close focusing ability so essential for dragonfly, butterfly and reptile shots and you have the truely wonderful all round lens required for wildlife documentation. Seriously, 55-250 IS lens is one of the best ways one can spend 13.5k. :)

The 400D decision is based on the fact that I liked the 450D. Yes, they are two different cameras but belong to same class. Quite similar Viewfinder, ISO performance, fps, negligible weight difference etc. I never used the Live view and the bigger LCD didn't quite impress me. The minor differences are not field relevant. The only major difference IMHO is 2 extra MPs, which are enough to make a difference between the FOV of a 400mm lens and a 450mm lens (on 35mm film). That, however, isn't worth the extra cash. The 400D and 55-250 make an inexpensive kit which I can carry around all the time without stress of lugging $$$$ everywhere I go. The money saved by opting for such an inexpensive kit will go for a decent laptop which will replace my 11 year old desktop or may be as saving for 100-400 or a 400/5.6 in near future.

Few images from the combo..

A few images from the trip:

Wild boar, Kaziranga

Rhino, Kaziranga

Hog Deer, Kaziranga

Safari

Sunset, Kaziranga

Moonrise over Kaziranga

Mayureshwar Wildlife Sanctuary- August 2008

Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Pune was conducting a day long workshop on various environmental issues faced by the local communities over there, introducing them to the concept of sustainable development and helping in resoliving the man-wildlife conflict at the border villages around the Sanctuary..We arranged the workshop at a village school, very near to the Sanctuary limits and just near this Water Tank..

As usual students arranged the whole event, girls working the most..I am more or less useless when it comes to these things, hence spent time and puting myself to some use..yes, PHOTOGRAPHY!

I had taken the following gear-
1. Pentax K10D.
2. Pentax FA50/1.4- For low light and portrait photography..
3. 18-55/3.5-5.6- kit lens which came along with the K10D..
4. Super Macro Takumar 50/4- For macro stuff. No I hadn't bought it, just 'testing' it on field..
5. Pentax SMC 300/4- For birds/mamals..
6. Vivitar 2X TC
7. Juhi's Tripod (Yuntgen or something)- I didn't even opened it..
I had stuffed the gear along with clothes etc in my main bagpack (owned by Darshan)..I still don't have a dedicated bag for photgraphy equipment..

Forest officer Mr. Nale was a very dynamic person. He encouraged me a lot and told us of his many wild experiences..It was sad that other students were least interested..Here was a man of much higher calibre telling us something which is so rare these days- first hand experiences- and they wre busy playing Antakshari..

Next day at dawn Nale Sir took me in his car and we went for a quick trail..Mayureshwar Wildlife SAnctuary is well known for its Chinkara population..These Antelopes are well dispersed in the Sanctuary and off it too..Nale Sir knew of a loner male who, after being dismissed from his herd by a younger and stronger male, liked to stay around a particular intersection of roads..I was able to get a decent image of him, even though I nearly missed the shot thanks to the cumbersome manual focus of the 300/4..We saw few herds, I saw a jackel running away from us..The Chinkaras weren't bothered much by cars than they were by pedestrians

 During off times, I used to hook on the Macro lens..There were always some or the other bug around..

Overall, it was a great learning experience.. learnt lot of lessons..

Tortoise beetle

Super Macro Takumar 50/4 III

I have been doing better and better with the Super Takumar 50/4 Macro with each passing day. Though I don't get to spend much time with it just few minutes a day, I do get at least 2-3 usable images every time I take out the camera. The lens has replaced my Kit lens and is always mounted on the K10D.

Though we ain't sure about the above species, Juhi thinks it is a Blue Tiger.

This is Common Red Eye (Matapa aria) of Hesperiidae family as identified by Juhi. Hesperiidae members are also called skippers for their quick darting habits (wikipedia). There are about 3500 species of them worldwide belonging to 550 genera.

I had never thought a ground skimmer (Diplocodes trivialis) could make me skip a heart beat. But as I looked throught the Pentaprism of the K10D and focused the silky smooth ring of the Super Takumar, I was completely zapped by its beauty. For a moment I couldn't help but stare at it without pressing the shutter. Ground skimmers belong to family Libellulidae which include 1139 species worldwide. For more information on Odonates of peninsular India, lo on to this link http://www.ias.ac.in/initiat/sci_ed/lifescape/odonates.html.

I don't know whether it is the lens, the weather which yielded this magic. None of the 6 people who were there with me cared to notice this beautiful standout. How can soo many people simply don't care to appreciate nature?

This is a Crimson Marsh Hawk male. (Trithemis aurora). This is the first Dragonfly I was able to capture using the SUper Takumar. I was disappointed as almost 2 weeks went past without a single good image of an odonate with the lens. Well the wait yielded warm returns.

When I spotted this plant in Alice Garden, I remembered a quote from a Canon user on an Internet forum. He had said that he would love to buy K10D only to shoot Reds!! I wondered whether K10D was really so fabulous with Red. Yes, it certainly is!

Insects are actually like small kids. Very shy! While kids hide behind their parents, curtains, this one decided to hide under the Golden Duranta leaf. But inquisitive as it was, it couldn't help but keep an eye on me!

I had to actually lay in wet dung to get this image. I have found the perfect photography wear in my rain pants and jacket. I can go anywhere without getting my clothes dirty and this makes my Mom unusually happy(more than my photos make her!).

This leaf isn't eaten to this shape. Clearly God favoured this shape. As the lens is useless for non macro subjects like this big leaf, I got underexposed shot but thanks to RAW and the S/W Raw Therapee that I could adjust the exposure.

I have been obsessed by the colour rendition given by the Super Takumar 50/4 Macro. Its absolutely mind blowing. The adjoining image is not even cropped, only resized and copyrighted. I wouldn't even had considered it worth photographing few weeks ago. Every moment I'm growing up as a photographer and understanding the magic of an SLR.

It is not a Tennis ball..It is a nest of a very small spider which looks alarmingly similar to the Giant Wood Spider. You can actually see the eggs inside. Nephila family members are well known amongst spider lovers for their skillfully constructed beautiful webs.

This spider belongs to genus Telamonia from the Salticidae family a.k.a 'Jumping spider family' was identified by my spiderman friend Sudhikumar A V. There are 5000 species belonging to 500 generas in the family Salticidae which is the largest spider family.

This spider was good enough to give me another chance to capture it. It came out of the Duranta leaf and posed for a brief moment to again disappear behind it.

This image has been spoilt by the harsh light of the onboard flash. I do need a better flash or a better flash position. None-the-less, I could have diffused the light with a butter paper. But your brain doesn't always work at the right time..

SUper Macro Takumar 50/4 II

Here are few more images which I was able to capture in the Alice Garden, my favourite place in the University of Pune campus(apart from the Department of Environmental Sciences). Though Alice Garden is (in)famous for college couples and the ghost of Alice, I love it for its rich biodiversity. I'll write more about it in a separate blog on Alice Garden. This Tiny Grass Blue (Zizula gaika) is really very tiny and impatient. Its always in flight. I was lucky to find it sitting. There are at least 4-5 of these around the pond in the Alice Garden. They fly very close to the ground. They are so tiny that the wingspan of an adult is only 1.5cm and the caterpillars are only 0.7cm long! Food plants are from the the family Acanthaceae. (Source- Wikipedia)

I found this Chrysalis of the Common Indian Crow in the premises of Arts building in the University opposite to the Open canteen. Few days ago I had spotted two caterpillars on exactly the same plant which Juhi recognised to be Euploea core (Indian Crow). Today just out of curiosity I searched the plant again to find this lone Chrysalis. This butterfly is very common in the University and is often seen flying slowly, somewhat carelessly. It is not eaten by any predator because it it is very bad to taste (Of course I haven't tasted!) as it consumes the chemicals secreted by its host plants.

This grasshopper was at such a lower surface that I had to actually hold my K10D just few inches above ground to meet its eye level. It was one of those times I wished my camera had a Live LCD view.

These images are shot as ** quality 10MP jepgs straight from the camera (Pentax K10D) with default sharpness tweaked a little bit.

Apart from the resizing, bordering, cropping and copyrighting these images, no editing is done.

This Plain Tiger was very patient indeed. Twice it settled on a twig, I positioned myself at leisure, focused and just before I pressed the shutter, it flew to a nearby twig. I was lucky the third time.

I usually don't capture flowers. I haven't wondered why. But this image makes me wonder how many beautiful images like this have I missed.

This frog was extremely brave. It let me shoot at least 20 shots in different position and light. It let me come so closer that I was limited by the minimum focusing distance of the Super Macro Takumar 50/4 lens! Though this image looks a little underexposed, it was necessary to do so in order to save the highlights.

Macro world is the weirdest world in our world. Many of the tiny creatures like this one would pass on as aliens to unfamiliar eyes.

I don't know what the adjoining photo shows. It was extremely tiny, maybe it belongs to one of the tiniest butterfly/moth.

This bee let me take its image only sideways. the moment I tried to go above it, it flew away.

Can you believe this image is taken using a flash? that too a built-in flash?? Of course the shadows in the background will give it away. anyways..

Hey, wait a minute, can u see a white spot almost in the middle of the image? (Click on the image to enlarge it.) I have no clue what it may be. Its not there in other images. Should check the lens again, thoroughly.

Super Macro Takumar 50/4 I Field Experience

I have been offered this screw mount lens along with the K mount adapter and front cap for Rs. 3500/- ($88). Before buying it, I decided to test it as to confirm whether it really fulfills my field needs. The lens is in pretty good condition tough it shows some wear n tear. After all it is a 40 years old lens!. It doesn't focus to infinity on my Pentax K10D which isn't a big deal but severely restricts its operation to macro work. Also, with f4 as its maximum aperture, it is pretty slow compared to my Pentax SMC FA 50/1.4 but then comparing them is like comparing apples with oranges.

The manual focusing is silky smooth. As the focusing ring rotates a great deal for even a minute change in focus, it gives the operator full control over focus point. There is a pin on the left side of the lens which enables the lens to get stopped down from wide open to the aperture selected in the aperture ring. This lens gives magnification of 1:2. i.e half life size. Still, with the help of my 25mm extension tube and 2 x Teleconverter, I can go beyond life size. I haven't tried the combinations on the field yet. A brief exposure test made me realise that the lens exposes properly only wide open and tends to progressively under expose at smaller apertures. However I found out that at f/16 with built in flash and camera on M or Av mode and ISO 100 gives me correct exposure every time. I prefer the Av mode because I don't have to press the Green button before every exposure. Also, In the M mode, the meter doesn't read the flash and gives exposure without considering that the flash is on. e.g. Sometimes it gives 3sec exposure which even with the flash fired thus producing blurred image. Keeping the camera in Av mode exposes every shot ( with flash fired) at 1/180.

The technique I followed while taking photos is as follows-

1. Keep the lens at its minimum focusing distance and at f16, built in flash popped up and at +1 of its intensity. Keep 'the stop down pin' down so that the lens is wide open and thus easier to focus.

2. Go close to the subject so that the desired area is in sharp focus.
3. Pull the stop down pin up so that the lens get stopped down at f16 and click the shutter release button immediately. This technique has enabled me to take few very good shots which I could have only dreamt of taking with my non macro lenses.

Though due to lack of money I wont buy this lens, I certainly recommend it! However please consider its limitations which I mentioned.

All the photos posted here are totally unedited except for the border, resizing, small cropping and the copyright.

I would like to mention that the views written in this blog are based on tests which I conducted and other's tests may yield (dunno how!) different results.