6/30/08
Boy, ya know it’s hot and miserable out when you see dubious photographic news posted, such as this entry. I was playing around inside my nice air-conditioned office/studio/spare bedroom/exercise room/lounge with my new product shot contraption I made and decided to throw a penny down and take a good macro. Incidentally, I almost made the Lincoln penny my regular macro test shot a couple of years ago, thankfully I didn’t, as the stamp I ended up using is much more detailed. I never knew of the initials on Lincoln’s right shoulder until I took a close shot with my Olympus C-750UZ camera from 2003. Most people have never seen these small initials, even though they carry pennies in their pocket everyday.
The initials, “VDB”The upper shot shows the initials location, the lower shot shows them up close. The image was taken with the Sony A700 and Sony 100mm macro lens, 1:1 mag at F/8, 100% crop. I used soft lighting for these shots, but I also experimented with a hand held flash, holding it all around the circumference for strong side-lighting to try and bring out more depth and detail, but the soft lighting ended up looking the best in my opinion. The penny is 3/4″ (19mm) in diameter, and the entire image below spans about .06″ (1.5mm). Each letter is about .012” (.3mm) wide. Get out a magnifying glass and look at your own penny. stand for Victor David Brenner, who designed the Lincoln penny for 1909, which looks the same as today’s coin.
In other news, the Minolta 24mm F/2.8 is quickly rising in price, now expect to pay $210-$280. Also, for some crazy reasons beyond me, I’ve seen some Minolta 80-200mm F/2.8 lenses going for just a few hundred dollars less than the full retail price of the more useful Sony 70-200mm F/2.8, which will accept Sony or Minolta tele-converters, the 80-200mm will not. Spend the extra money for more usability.
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| KM 17-35mm F/2.8-4 coming soon. |