363: Old Metal Parts

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 49mm extension, 1/4 flash (bounced,) white card, tripod. Tone curve adjustment, sharpen, slight rotate and crop.

339: Ring Spine

Settings: f/10 (approx,) 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 9mm extension, 1/4 flash (bounced,) black velvet, cable release, tripod. Slight curves and colour adjustment, crop to 16:9.

332: The Speed Selector

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 51mm extension, 1/4 flash, metal bowl, black velvet, tripod.

318: Bridge-Train-Tree

A spur of the moment shot, as a train and I both approached a bridge.
Interesting how the tree on the left is visible through a gaping hole in the engine vehicle.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/640, ISO 400, P-FA 50mm. Levels adjustment and crop.

317: Scratch & Shine

A detail from a metal spoon directly under a halogen light, shot very close up. Quite a soft image, but with a ton of tubes and a wide-open lens, it's almost a certainty; also hand-holding the camera doesn't help much.

Settings: f/1.8, 1/8, ISO 200, 50mm Cosinon M42, 83mm extension. Colour adjustment and crop.

290: On the Rear Wheel

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44M M42, 1/4 flash, 9mm extension, tripod/

287: Diagonal Chrome

Settings: f/4, 1/25, ISO 800, DA 16-45 (16mm.)

267: Yellow Lines

I'm used to a fixed focal length lens, but a fixed focus lens is something I'm just not used to using with an SLR. It takes me back to the days of little plastic 110 and 135 compacts, except with a better viewfinder for starters.

Like the last time, I used electrical tape to fix a lens to the camera... Bad practice! Don't do this at home unless you expect things to fall out now and again.
I really need one of those double threaded M42-M39 step-down rings. Much better than tape.

Settings: f/4.5, 1/320, ISO 100, 50mm Paterson 1:4.5 M39, M42-PK adapter.

260: Coil With Beads

Settings: f/4, 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44M M42, 1/4 flash, foil reflector, black velvet, tripod.

259: Flash Boil

I have to take some more of these; the small series I shot today seemed like a good start, but just not close enough to capture the finer boiling details.
One thing I didn't anticipate was how many tiny droplets would be captured in mid-air over the iron plate - they look quite magical just suspended, while the water still on the plate is frozen, but clearly shimmering and dancing in a state of mid-eruption.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 9mm extension, 1/4 flash, foil reflector, tripod. Luminance curve adjustment, sharpening, cropped to 5:4.

256: Stars & Pentagons

Settings: f/4, 1/180, ISO 100, 24mm Tamron Adaptall 1:2.5, 9mm extension, glass, black velvet, foil reflector, tripod. Crop.

243: Droplet Shiny Balls

Settings: f/5.6 (approx,) 1/180, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 51mm extension, 1/4 flash, black velvet, foil reflector, tripod.

230: Half and Half

Settings: f/4, 1/5, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 26mm extension, halogen light, tripod.

193: Mixed Steel Screws

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod.

178: Crusty, Trusty & Rusty

I will not apologise for the condition of my old boots; they are fifteen years old and well used. I took a very similar photo a couple of years ago, but have revisited it here as the previous photo had somewhat inferior colour and detail.
The laces shown here are the second pair, and will probably outlast the boot by now.

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 200, 50mm Cosinon M42, 19mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod.

154: Rainbow Copper

Settings: f/11, 1/2.5, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 49m extension, 1/4 flash, beanbag.

134: Brass Chambers

Settings: f/1.8, 1 sec. ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 26mm extension, tungsten light, tripod.

103: Steel & Holes

This is a detail of a folding steamer; in my view bearing a slight resemblance to the blades of a jet turbine.
There was a hint of green peculiarity going on with the white balance (I used both flash in front and a "daylight" flourescent lamp behind,) so I had a good mess around with it, adjusting the luminance curve and pulling all the colour out. I like the image much more now.

Settings: f/11, 1/60, ISO 200, 50mm Cosinon M42,19mm extension, tripod, 1/4 flash, table lamp, white reflectors.
It's turned out surprisingly grainy for ISO 200, but then again I did tweak the contrast quite a bit, and it's from a K10D, so a fair degree of noise is a fact of life. It is quite a film-grainy noise though, so I quite like it nonetheless.

067: Swan Bean

Fiddling around composing bean sprouts on a piece of kitchen foil can come up with strange and unexpected results.
Like this, for instance. It was a bean, now it's a swan. The foil ripples gently like the surface of a calm canal. The only thing missing is a wake for the bean-bird, but I didn't want to mess with the foil this time. If I crinkled it wrong it might have ruined the effect.

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 200, 50mm M42, 19mm extension, low flash, white reflector over top.
I actually messed up here; the end part of the sprout I aimed to focus on is slightly out of focus, but the light on the foil water looks quite convincing. Yes, I ate the sprout...

063: Rust and Holes

Settings: f/6.7, 1/180 sec, ISO 100, lens and flash settings as yesterday; just foil, no reflectors.
Reduced saturation and increased contrast and sharpness. Cropped from original larger shot, as I though the crusty rust parts benefitted from a further close-up.