Macro Experiments

I bought the Canon EF25 II lens extender to start practicing macro videography. I didn't want to splurge ($$) on a new macro lens with a fixed focal range, so this was a really good $150 option to get me started. I quickly discovered that my wide lenses weren't ideal to use in conjunction with the extender because the front glass basically had to touch the subject to get focus. Not only did the objects appear too close to the camera, I wasn't getting as much bokeh as I wanted. My best results came from my Canon 70-200 USM II f2.8. The zoom allowed me to experiment with different focal lengths without switching lenses (no brilliant revelation there).

I shot a test on our Sony FS700 with the Odyssey 7Q recording to 2K ProRes at 240fps and 4k ProRes at 24fps. I used one small SOLA ENG LitePanel with a soft box (more specifically a frosted glass bowl, pictured below) to give me the very diffused light I needed to shoot beautiful macro images. I just moved the light around the objects until I got the results that I was after. I initially tried aiming a few lights directly at the setup from a distance, but the light was still too direct, causing hard shadows and deep contrast. I also couldn't get the moving light effect that makes macro photography like this so interesting. I was pretty happy with the quick 'n dirty results. Great macro option for the price and a very versatile addition to your kit. It's not going to be the end-all macro lens for me though since I still want to go much smaller scale than this.