Trying something new

I've been reading Bryan Peterson's new book "Understanding Close-up photography.." and he mentioned using a Canon 500D close up diopter on wide angle lenses. I happen to have a 500D that fit my Canon 10-22 lens so I thought I would try it tonight while shooting with my photography class. This shot is a pseudo HDR using the 500D on my 10-22 at 10mm. I need to work on the technique some, this is a bit soft, but I think this combo has some potential to produce some interesting shots. The flower (snow on the mountain?) in the foreground was 3-4" from the front of my lens in this shot. I had to crop the image a bit as the diopter caused severe vignetting on the upper corners at 10mm. You can also some see some pretty severe distortion at the edges of the shot with the lens at 10mm. But overall I think I will keep working on this technique

Canon 40D, Canon 10-22mm @ 10mm with Canon 500D diopter attached, f22, 1/13, raw file processed 3 times and combined in photomatix.

This is another shot with the Canon 10-22 and 500D diopter. This time the lens was at 22mm and the flower in the foreground was about 2" from the front of the lens...and was a very small flower.

I've tried these recently with a 15mm fisheye and I think it is VERY challenging to get good results. Have you tried focus stacking? It may help to frame knowing that you might crop some of the edges. I think the second works better for me. Cool effect!

As Aaron noted you can use focus stacking via Photoshop or Helicon Focus and get some really amazing results with everything in focus from front to infinity - but not with the close-focus filter since it would only focus really close up and you could not get the distant stuff in focus. David Muench popularized this technique 50 or more years ago (shooting macro and distant in the same scene with everything in focus), but he used a view camera and simply tilted it to change the plane of focus - still a very powerful technique today, especially with the software options we have available. You can also do this with with a straight shot using an ultra-wide lens and hyperfocus, although with high-res digital it does not work as well as it used to 30 years ago with film. You can focus really close with ultra-wides - and remember that the close-focus limit is measured from the sensor, not from the front of the lens.

Scott, a very interesting technique and your shots are great. Thanks for sharing. By the way I really like what you have been doing with Photomatix.

Interesting images Scott. I like both, good light to boot. I'll be looking forward to seeing more as you perfect the technique.

Both are great shots, Scott, but the flowers in the first one are gorgeous. Thanks for sharing the technique.

Thanks for the feed back everyone!

Aaron and Tim, have you tried the program TuFuse Pro for focus stacking? I've been playing around with it and Combine ZM.

Everything I've ever read about TuFuse points to the fact that it does not align the images for you, which is kind of basic. Doesn't matter to me anyway - I won't ever have a windows machine under my fingertips. Helicon and now CS4 work pretty well, and when using an ultrawide and hyperfocus, even manual blending is not all that bad...

Looks like an interesting technique. I also really like the Snow on the Mountain the first shot but the distortion is a little distracting to me. It looks like there is more depth of field in the first, was the second also shot at f22? It would be interesting to see what it looks like with everything in focus. I look forward to seeing more.

Yeah the lack of alignment in Tufuse is a drawback, I've been aligning in CS3 first.

Ken: Yes both images were shot f22.