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/

199: Wire Mesh

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 33mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod.

193: Mixed Steel Screws

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

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.

021: Steel Screws

Continuing on my current theme of high-magnification photography, I decided to get close up on some small steel screws of the type that secure computer components in a case. The base surface is a recycled car tyre mouse mat. This has a good grip that the upside-down screws hold well to, and also an interesting fine texture that's somewhat like extremely fine asphalt.
Exposure settings are f/5.6 1/180 sec. ISO 100, low-power flash. Again it's full manual with the same lens as before. This is another image that I managed to get right first time, so I'm pleased with that too. I simply shot it and uploaded the JPEG straight from the memory card.
The only thing I'm not keen on in this photo is the out-of-focus highlights at the top left. They are a little harsh and clearly hexagonal, but they don't distract too much and I like hexagons anyway.
Expect to see more hexagons of various types...