Hi guys!!!!!! Few weeks back we had a chance to play with this super duper solid lens which has become one of my personal favourite besides the fisheye!! I wanted to keep the lens for good, but my boss flashed the red light and it’s a no go for it this time. So saaaaaaad! I’m thinking of starting on a personal project next year which involves a level of committment for the entire year. I think nobody will like it (not even Raymond!), almost everyone will be turned off by it, but it’ll be damn cool if I can find someone who will appreciate it! Muwahahahaha!! 😛
So before we say goodbye to the super solid piece of glass, we had a chance to fiddle with it for a month. Only the “expensive eye” series is taken using the Canon 5D mark2, while the rest are taken with my humble camera (pok chui).  Enjoy! 🙂

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The most expensive eye in our studio.

With a dilated pupil. Can spot the difference? This is at it’s original zoom condition only, and the results is already so amazing!

A closer zoom, perhaps about 2 or 3 times, which I cannot really remember.

Here’s a 4 or 5 times zoom.

I super love the lens, and even without any cropping, this is what you see in your camera itself!

Now for my eyeball taking using my pok chui. Because it would be more ideal to feed this lens with a lot of light, my eye had slight irritation and started to tear. So you can see there’s actually a drop of tear from my upper lid.

The focus is soooooooooooooooooo super macro super close up, a specialised tripod head is recommended for this. A slight micro mm can cause the image to be in focus, or out of focus.

Unfortunately Raymond’s tripod head is with a friend at that point of time, so we had to do everything with hand, or using the table as a tripod for support, which you can see, is not enough at all.

Now for Susu’s eyes! I snapped this with my pok chui too, and I had susu laying her head on the computer table for support. Can see the tiny red veins? Super! And this is at original zoom condition!

Now now now,  super nice!

Some marble jelly at 3 or 4 times the zoom. The more you zoom in, the harder it is to control. And also it doesnt work like most lenses with a focusing ring, you actually have to literally shift the lens forward or backward, which explains why you need the specialised tripod head.

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Aside from the eye series, I snapped some other objects cos it’s really super fun!

An image of my fingerprint, with dirt which I couldn’t see with my bare eyes. Now you know why the adults/doctors always advise us to wash our hands before we eat.

The trackball of my blackberry Bold!!!!!! Oh my goodness, if you have seen a blackberry Bold before, you’ll know how small the trackball is. To be able to fill up almost the entire frame with the trackball, I don’t know it kind of blew my mind when I first snapped it!

Image source: http://miramarsellia.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/blackberry-bold.jpg
This is how the Blackberry Bold looks like.

And then I tried it on diamond ring! Of course this extremely dull and lacklustre ring is one with a fake diamond. I believe one taken with the real deal would be dammmmn gorgeous!

The flaws inside the diamond can be seen totally because its on the inside. I polished the exterior many times before shooting, but no use.

The super inside of the inside.

Next I tried it on the Singapore ten cents coin.

On Raymond’s pendant which is actually pretty small at this little knot area. I was pretty much obsessed with the piece of glass.

Part of the pendant with cracks and dirt clearly seen.

More image of the ring.

And more flaws…. Wahahahahahaha~

I wanted to find the tiniest thing I could in the studio! But i didn’t want to shoot dead ants. So I took out a piece of rice grain. The pock mark black color thingy is actually the underneath of my paperweight – a very fine piece of styrofoam. I was surprised to see so much pock marks too, and you can see the thin line of focus at original zoom condition of the lens.

A closer zoom, you can even see the CRACKS ON THE RICE GRAIN!!!!! When i preview the image on monitor, I thought it was a fine strand of hair or string, so I took the rice grain and examined again. Took another shot, held it under lights, indeed it was a really fine crack.

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There you go, an entry on one of my favourite piece of glass! Admittedly there isn’t any practical use for this piece of glass for a wedding shoot especially since a lot of time will be spent just on the technical set up alone, but I thought it’s good to experiment and explore the different sides to Photography! Sometimes things like this helps us see life from another perspective, teaches us not to see things only at face value, appreciate what’s within, and it frees our mind from the things that we always do and is so used to doing – wedding photography. I think it’s a good thing. Something away from the norm, something that fires our passion in Photography once again with every new discovery of equipment and techniques. Today I am happy! 🙂

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On a side note, Raymond is currently away in Russia, so feel free to direct any enquiries over to [email protected], and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Can’t wait for him to share some pretty images from Russia when he’s back! Cheers! 🙂

Lots of ♥,
– Angeline