I went on a little trip to Palma Nova today, where I stayed with Lucy back in 2018.
It brought back some good memories, we really enjoyed ourselves on that trip.
I'm glad I had the opportunity to pop back here while I was in Mallorca. Sentimental old oaf I may be, but so be it.
One more from our 2018 trip after the jump.
I was at the limit of magnification for the 100mm macro lens on the 6D MkII, so I switched back to the 80D for this one. Its 1.6x crop sensor effectively gives a "free" teleconversion effect compared to the full frame sensor, which was perfect for getting me in that little bit closer without losing light or depth of field.
I think this is the first time I've used the new-ish-to-me Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS macro lens on this camera - all my previous macro work with this body was done with my older lenses.
We had one of the best thunderstorms I've experienced in the UK tonight.
Hopefully nobody ended up flooded or zapped!
Revisited "my" tree again this evening. It's now surrounded by waist-high wheat or similar. I had to be quite careful not to damage the crops when I was walking along the edge of the field to get close enough to the tree.
I've also been playing with some photography through my old microscope this weekend.
The second photo (after the jump) is part of a carnation petal through the microscope, focus stacked.
I'm planning to have a look at motorising the stage on this microscope to make this stacking process more consistent, but I'm relatively happy with this for a first go.
I was going for a more abstract look with this one.
I was also having a play with a bit of an unconventional macro arrangement - my 50mm f/2.5 macro lens, with a 20mm extension tube, and then a 1.4x teleconverter that is normally only usable with specific L series lenses because it has an element that protrudes into the back of those lenses. The extension tube made space for that element, and it appears to work quite well.
A spot of electronic repair this evening, which turned out to be quite interesting - the failure wasn't strictly electronic, but one of the components had a fractured lead from metal fatigue caused by vibration.
It turns out that I am more mathematically incompetent than I had realised, so the photo I had planned for today will have to wait for another 13 days!
After scratting around for a while, I eventually settled on this as a subject. It feels fairly fitting, I've been doing quite a bit of electronics at work recently.
It is only fortuitous that I had a new pack of bagels ready to go...
One of the wines we had at our wedding. Lovely stuff, on a lovely day.
L, I miss you every single day. I'm forever glad that we managed to have our day, on our terms, before the rug got pulled from under our feet.
Just about drowned both myself and the camera tonight... Filthy weather!
A couple more after the jump.
It turns out that being able to adjust power and turn specific flashes on and off remotely is as useful as I thought it would be.
I'm very pleased with the Godox setup, although my older 430EX flashes don't talk to the radios like the newer units do, so they are on/off and trigger only, no remote power adjustment is possible. I'll probably (eventually) either replace them with used 430EX IIs or more likely go for a couple more new Godox TT600s. Pricing is similar, actually less for new TT600s, and the included accessories are pretty nice.
2 flashes, one each side on the front, one flash, gelled green, on the backdrop, and when it worked, a fourth flash with a tight grid fitted, aimed from the back right.
I've made an interesting discovery that the EOS 80D seems to have much more jitter in its trigger time than the EOS M6 Mk II does. The M6 II seems to have very little jitter, in that subsequent frames triggered identically don't vary much, but the 80D seems to vary quite a lot. I might try and measure it at some point, just for the hell of it.
I bought a Godox TT600 flash and an Xpro transmitter. I'm very impressed. The bang for buck on the TT600 is very hard to argue with. It's got a lot of capability, quality of life features, and included accessories for remarkably little money.
I've also got a set of Godox X1R receivers for my Canon Speedlites on order, so it'll be very nice to have full remote power control of all of my lighting from the camera end rather than having to wander round poking fiddly little adjustment buttons on each flash.
Note to self: when shooting glass in future, make sure to have a polishing cloth on hand to kill the inevitable and ugly fingerprint marks...
Incidentally, that makes it one month since I started this project. I've enjoyed it so far, although I've found it pretty hard to maintain the momentum on one or two days.
