From: laura halliday on Aug 29, 1:57 pm


wrote:

a very easy field-expedient extreme close-up adapter: An
ordinary large magnifying glass. :-)

I do closeups the old-fashioned way with my Digital Rebel,
using an extension tube to hold the lens farther away
from the sensor than it would otherwise sit. With such
gear it's easy to blow up an individual component (or
coax connector, or coin, or whatever) to fill the entire
frame.

I used to do that with my Exacta VX 35mm SLR and
three extra lenses plus the extension tubes (circa 1954
and duty-free store). Problem is the WAIT and
developing fuss (changing bag, loading the developing
tank, timing out the Microdol, etc.). Then one finds
a few frames less than optimum and those have to be
done over. :-(

As Bill Sabin remarked the digital camera lets one
check the image NOW...and (as I love) do it in color.
INSTANT IMAGING. Gotta love it for visual note-taking
as a project goes through its stages.

Not to mention scope photos done directly, economical
given the cost of digital scopes nowadays. No messy
residue from Polaroid packs as they were as late as in
the 1980s. For easy recording of scope settings, just
refocus, reframe and get the whole front panel in a
second shot. Every setting on the scope's front panel
is right there for reference. [the old changing bag
now does double duty as a background-light shield when
taking scope shots, not the best but it is black...]

A packed-with-printer/scanner/whatever digitial image
editing program can size up the digital photos, make
them black-and-white (if desired), size them...and the
result stored in the PC or on CDs (no emulsion
reticulation worries or wrong "color temperature").
The little camera memory stick (or SuperDisk floppy
in the Panasonic) can then be erased and one has
"recyclable film!" :-)