Mount Diablo Macros

Monday I shared a few photos from my April 7th trip up Mount Diablo (yes, I'm about two months behind on posting photos this year.) I also took my K-7 that day. For lenses, I had my 50mm Pentax-A 1:2, 135mm Vivitar, a macro bellows, and my 31mm 1:1.8 FA Limited. I also brought my new Manfrotto Carbon Tripod With 3-Way Head - MK293C4D3Q2 (Google Affiliate Ad) tripod to test it on macro photos. I was pretty pleased with how it performed. At any rate, the trip's purpose was macro stacking. And some of the test shots I took for stacking macro photos worked very well. Since this trip, I got another macro bellows, this one with a built-in slide that will allow better macro stacks.


In real life, that fly was pretty big.


Selective focus macro, made by stacking but only focusing on part of the image.


Made from about 30 razor-thin focal slices.


I would lichen this to moss, and algae. Maybe both.


Stacking macros isn't the only use of a bellows, though. With the 135mm attached, I managed some good very-close shots from a number of feet away. This lizard was skittish, but I was able to get these shots from about three or four feet.


I think this is a fence lizard, but I'm not sure.





Some flowers. I used the flash on this shot. Yeah. I was surprised by how well it turned out, too.








And, when on Mount Diablo, it's good to get some area shots, too. It's a scenic place. This was made by stacking about six shots to get maximum depth of field without stopping down too far. Look closely under the bench and you can see a stitching error.


A multi-shot panorama of the observation building. The individual shots weren't stopped down very far, so each image had a different focal point, similar to the technique I used in the image above.