Morning Dew 2

Early this month I posted a photo of morning dew. I didn't mention in the post that it was taken as an experiment in that I used a telephoto lens. It worked well to give the effect I wanted though it is not what a telephoto is generally used for. Today's dew photo is another experiment that used a unique feature of the Sony a55 DSLR Camera - one of Sony's newer models - and a legacy lens - a Takumar SMC 55mm 1.8 lens with an extension tube. Unlike most macros the camera was not mounted on a tripod. This is a handheld photo. Usually the amount of blur due to shakiness would be more noticeable but the Multi Frame Noise Reduction feature of the Sony A55 was used here. The photo was shot using ISO 3200, a setting that would normally produce considerable "noise". However, the Sony A55 enables one to set a high ISO (up to 12,800). With a single press of the shutter release it rapidly takes five exposures and then merges them to reduce the noise. This enables one to shoot relatively fast so that reasonably sharp hand held macros are more possible. The photo above was shot at 1/200 of a second with the lens stopped down to f11. If you look carefully you can see the photographer's head (baseball cap) and shoulders silhouetted in the dewdrop and some clouds in the sky above his head.