I spent a little time last night with the extension tubes on the camera. The first small thing that came to hand was this fella, a Lego M:Tron man from my childhood. I loved this chap’s space ship when I was a kid, complete with its magnet that picked up I-can’t-remember-what on its little crane.
I am always amazed with the effect the extension tubes have on my kit 18-55mm lens. This was taken with tubes 1 and 3, which must add about 60mm of extension to the 55mm of the lens. The glass of the lens was about 15mm away from the Lego figure. The camera was mounted on a tripod and was pointing downwards to give the dramatic angle. (I also like the front-on shot too.)
The tubes reduce the depth of field down to a single millimetre or so. I focussed manually on the figure’s smile. This resulted in a pleasing blurriness around the logo on his front and the visor of his helmet whilst keeping his smile in sharp focus. (I decided to focus on the smile rather than the eyes as two black dots can’t convey much emotion!)
I am not sure his raised black hand looks right in the composition, but I love the picture overall. The unusual angle and placement of his head in the frame really works, I think.
Post-processing was light. I reigned in a little of the blown highlights and sharpened his smile and eyes a little.