I recently visited a camera shop and made an impulse purchase. I visited for entirely different reasons and as soon as I saw the Sony 90mm f2.8 G Macro lens sitting on the shelf, I knew I had to have it!
The Sony 90mm macro lens has been on my radar for years. I have dabbled with macro photography where I've used extension tubes to get in close. Having a lens specifically designed for macro and this being one of the sharpest lenses available for Sony FE mount, the decision to purchase was a no brainer.
On my first outing with the lens, I visited my local woodland looking for fungi to shoot. I walked for a mile or two loaded with reflectors, flashguns and a tripod. I came back with some presentable shots but realised that fungi photography just didn't quite cut it for me.
My other area of expertise is lightpainting photography which I've been a fan of for around 12 years or so. I have quite a bit of equipment and gadgets I use to make images including fibre optic brushes.
So one evening, sat at my desk, a brainwave occurred to me. What if I shoot the fibre optic brushes up close?
This post is the result of an hour of experiments sat at my desk in the dark!
Different lenses have different characteristics and the Sony 90mm creates some quite nice bokeh when shot wide open at f2.8.
I don't always reveal how I make these images but I will say here using my computer monitor as a backdrop behind the fibres really helped the colour pop.
Only slight movements of the camera reveals a whole different composition:
I was reminded of something like a forest viewed from above with this one:
The monitor background was quite useful here for simulating a moon shot:
All the shots in this session were handheld with the lighting adjusted to avoid camera shake:
I like to try different methods of lighting and here I used the random screensaver on my screen as a backdrop shooting every time I saw an interesting pattern.
I used different colour adapters on the flashlight I was using the make the fibres appear in different colours. The orange was a fave:
More orange:
Blue filter:
More blue:
I have quite a few more like the above but I'll end up looking like an macro obsessive lunatic if I post anymore!!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex, landscape and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; the social side of photography is always good!
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