Macro fun, 105 x 1.4

Talked to a friend at Monterey Friday. She told me the water was flat and calm, so I decided to extend the range of my macros by adding a Tamron 1.4x teleconverter to the Sigma 105mm and try it out at Wharf II on Saturday.

The session got off to a bad start when my L&M mod light chose this occasion to quit; burnt out bulb. Even though it's a shallow day dive, it's dark under the pier and a focus light is necessary. I almost gave up and just spend the time looking around. However, I got bored with that after a little while and so decided to try it with the lights on the Inon Z220. It took some getting use to , but I manage to get a few shots I like.

All shot on autofocus. Nothing cropped

I know you're tired of this guy, but I had to shoot one of these to compare with the ones shot with the 105 by itself.

Something different.

I couldn't tell what this was when I looked at it. It was too small and I didn't have a light. Thought it may be interesting so I took one shot. Wish I had spent the rest of the dive shoot this one. Next time....

Herb,

The top shot I think works very well. The shapes of the bryozoans (?) really draw your eye to the blenny face. Your lighting is spot on and the depth of field is excellent too. A really great shot.

The other two work less well for me. The face of the crab is a bit dark and gets lost in the background. And I think with an octopus you need to show the whole animal to tell its story (I realise you were doing a 105mm with tele dive!). I'm not sure a non diver would realise what this is.

Your Canon AF seems to have been undaunted by the teleconverter. That is very impressive.

I am not familar with the subject matter so it is difficult to comment on magnification.

Alex

Thanks for the comments Alex. I really wish I knew it was an Octopus I was shooting. It just looked like a funny looking lump so I took one shot to look at later.

For those not familar with the equipment, the Sigma 105mm will focus down to 1:1 which gives a field-of-view of 22mm for the Drebel, with the 1.4x teleconverter the combination is a 147mm lens and can focus down to a FOV of 16mm. I don't think I can quite get there on autofocus because it needs a little room to hunt for the focus, but I was close on these shots. My best guess is a FOV of 20mm.

Autofocus is pretty good for a $750 camera body.

Here's a 100% crop of some details of the first shot