# New Muro Torsione with Nikon 60mm



## Denis McCarthy (Apr 8, 2013)

Just finished my new Muro Via Torsione in Amboyna Burl. These two shots were taken with the Nikon 60mm f/2.8g Micro lens mounted to a D90. Without a doubt my favorite lens!


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## Denis McCarthy (Apr 8, 2013)

Here is a shot of just the Torsione Amboyna barrel.


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## mmayo (Apr 9, 2013)

Yeah Baby!


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## 76winger (Apr 9, 2013)

So what's it look like close up? :biggrin::biggrin:

Just kidding, I'm am curious though as to what distance was between the camera and the pen with that lens. 

Great looking pen!


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## Glenn McCullough (Apr 9, 2013)

Makes the pen look like a million bucks even though it'll only fetch a hundy or two!! Great job! Can you show a photo of your tent and lighting setup? Was this natural or bulb lighting, etc?


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## SDB777 (Apr 10, 2013)

Do you happen to have another lense in the same 90mm range to compare it too?  Was just wondering....


I was so close, back-in-the-day, to pulling the trigger on a Nikon.  Man, I wish I had now.  Think Sony sold all the really great sensors to Nikon and Pentax, and left us with the 'leftovers'.



Very sharp focus, and the image is more then crisp!!  Did you shoot these using the auto-focus?






Scott (rock solid lense, congrats) B


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## Denis McCarthy (Apr 10, 2013)

Thanks for the kind words guys! I thought they turned out nice too. Dave, I was about 6 to 8 inches from the tip of the pen in the second image. In the first one probably 10 to twelve inches. I looked at the camera data for the second image, it was 1/1.3 seconds @ F/36 which is as small as the lens will go. The Exposure Value was -0.7. As far as the light box Glenn, its two diffused lights on the left and the right side. I set the camera timer to 5 seconds, and move the right light around, including overhead at times to get the lighting where I like it. I can play with the lights while the camera is counting down. The second image is a little tricky because of the weirdo angle, but I want to show the curves of the barrel.. I think I'm going to start shooting more in RAW mode too. I ran a few images through Nikon NX and they look even better uncompressed. You could actually see the sharpness change. Interesting! Love this stuff!!  And Scott, I usually let the camera autofocus, but if I move away from F/36 to say F/14, I will move to manual focus. The camera seems to want to focus on weird spots.. I like to deside were and what to focus on in that situation.


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## mmayo (Apr 11, 2013)

Ok I want a photo of your setup too.


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## 76winger (Apr 11, 2013)

Denis McCarthy said:


> Thanks for the kind words guys! I thought they turned out nice too. Dave, I was about 6 to 8 inches from the tip of the pen in the second image. In the first one probably 10 to twelve inches. I looked at the camera data for the second image, it was 1/1.3 seconds @ F/36 which is as small as the lens will go. The Exposure Value was -0.7. As far as the light box Glenn, its two diffused lights on the left and the right side. I set the camera timer to 5 seconds, and move the right light around, including overhead at times to get the lighting where I like it. I can play with the lights while the camera is counting down. The second image is a little tricky because of the weirdo angle, but I want to show the curves of the barrel.. I think I'm going to start shooting more in RAW mode too. I ran a few images through Nikon NX and they look even better uncompressed. You could actually see the sharpness change. Interesting! Love this stuff!!  And Scott, I usually let the camera autofocus, but if I move away from F/36 to say F/14, I will move to manual focus. The camera seems to want to focus on weird spots.. I like to deside were and what to focus on in that situation.



Thanks for the extra info Dennis! I don't have the NX software so I haven't tried RAW yet. Still learning the the tools for .JPG editing. I also wanted to comment that I prefer manual focus for just the reason you cite. I want to focus on the point that gives me the artistic effect "I'm" trying to achieve rather than hoping the camera figures it out. This is also where the "through the lens" view of SLR/DSLR cameras are a favorite of mine.

Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner


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## Sylvanite (Apr 12, 2013)

Denis McCarthy said:


> I usually let the camera autofocus, but if I move away from F/36 to say F/14, I will move to manual focus. The camera seems to want to focus on weird spots.. I like to deside were and what to focus on in that situation.



I think you'll wind up happier with manual focus.  If my desired focus point happens to fall on an autofocus sensor, I sometimes have the camera focus there - but I still might tweak the focus manually.  Depth-of-Field extends further behind the focus point than it does in front (roughly 2/3 : 1/3).  Therefore, you should focus a little in front of the middle.  Check the DoF preview to see if you are getting the desired focus coverage.  

If you move from aperture priority to full manual exposure, then you won't have to worry about exposure compensation.  Just take a test shot, check the histogram, and adjust if necessary.

One of the advantages of an APS-C sensor over a 35mm sensor for pen photography, is that when you fill the frame, you get a deeper depth-of-field.

Regards,
Eric


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## mikespenturningz (Apr 12, 2013)

Such a beautiful piece of wood. Well done.


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## George417 (Apr 12, 2013)

Amboyna Burl is one of my favorites for pens.
It dresses them up so beautifully.


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## jttheclockman (Apr 12, 2013)

I don't get all wraped up in pen photos, just that they are crisp and can be seen easily. The macro and zooming in on a pen to me is just not needed for a forum where we show off pens. But if that is your thing that is great and hope to see some great shots of your pens in the future with your new toy. Looks good.

Would like to address your pen though. To me it looks like you need some more work on your fit. Look at the photo you posted of the blank alone. Are you happy with that look??? To me it is way out of balance for a one piece blank. You want to try to follow the curves of the kit so it blends in and not stand out. The top of that blank is way too fat. The bottom does not fit the kit. It stands proud of the fittings. Now everyone can tell you how nice it looks and you continue on doing the same things. What I try to do is point out the things that can make your pen turning look as good as your photo taking. They do go hand in hand on this forum. 

Now this is just my opinion and you can do with it as you may but just trying to be helpful. Good luck with the camera and better luck with your pen turning. 

By the way I love that blank material.


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## Denis McCarthy (Apr 12, 2013)

Thanks again guys.

Dave, I'm not really sure its worth taking the shots in RAW as they will then need to be converted into a JPEG before posting them up online such as IAP or Facebook or a website for that matter. I did find it interesting that I was able to actually see a change in the sharpness of the image when I checked the same image, .NEF file type vs the .JPG image. The file size difference is huge too. The RAW .NEF file is around 9 Megs vs the .JPG file size around 4 Megs. Alot of data compression is going on there! I suppose if I were going to print a poster size image of my pen it would make more since to work with the RAW image file. Regarding the manual and auto focus settings, I do move from one or the other a good bit while shooting. Its nice to have that control. And when shooting the pen at that odd angle, I wanted to choose the engraved portion to be the sharpest element in the photo. 

John, thanks for your opinion on the fit and shape details. If you look at the first image of the completed pen, you will see that the barrel flows nicely with the lines of the metal parts of the kit. Thats one of the reasons I like this kit so much. It has a nice "aero" shape to it. As to the final fit of the blank, I like to leave a little extra material at the thinnest section when working with a burl.


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## Sylvanite (Apr 12, 2013)

Denis McCarthy said:


> I'm not really sure its worth taking the shots in RAW as they will then need to be converted into a JPEG before posting them up online such as IAP or Facebook or a website for that matter.


Correct!  If your target format is jpeg, then the primary difference between shooting in raw and jpeg is that the camera's firmware is doing the conversion for you (according to its recipe) instead of you doing the conversion in post-processing.  As long as you're satisfied with the job the camera does, there's no real advantage to shooting raw.  If you're producing a photo that you will share on the web (such as on penturners.org), then resizing to 800x600 is going to lose way more detail than the raw-jpeg conversion did.



> I did find it interesting that I was able to actually see a change in the sharpness of the image when I checked the same image, .NEF file type vs the .JPG image. The file size difference is huge too. The RAW .NEF file is around 9 Megs vs the .JPG file size around 4 Megs. Alot of data compression is going on there! I suppose if I were going to print a poster size image of my pen it would make more since to work with the RAW image file.


There are two primary differences between the D90 raw format and jpeg format.  One is color space.  The D90 raw format saves 12-bits of data for each color channel for each pixel whereas jpeg only saves 8.  The other difference is compression.  The raw format is uncompressed whereas jpeg uses a "lossy" compression scheme.  The compression rate is variable, and the more you compress, the more color data you lose.  The color loss becomes visible as pixelization, posterization, and loss of sharpness (aliasing).

If you have problems with exposure or dynamic range, the raw format can be more forgiving.  That is, the 12-bit color depth still contains shadow and highlight detail that you can recover before converting the image to 8-bit.  If you don't like the camera's recipe for color balance, tonal adjustment, contrast, and sharpening, shooting raw lets you make those adjustments yourself.

If you were going to print poster-size enlargements of your pens, then you'd probably want to shoot raw and edit using a 16-bit color space.  That would preserve the full dynamic range of the camera.

Regards,
Eric


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