Lost in dimensions? (I)

From time to time we are being asked whether one might photograph those tardigrades without a microscope, simply by means of a loupe or a classical consumer-camera/macro-objective setup?

In former times old-fashioned macro equipment was used up to a so-called scale factor of 1:1 (which is the relation between the actual object size and its image on the film or the CCD chip respectively).

Some of our readers now will remember their beloved analogue cameras from the 1970s and 1980s where optional macro objectives could be added for many $$$.

We have been looking into our own drawers for you and would like to begin with our first find, a book about pre-digital macro photography. Its strange title is "Konica - mon amour":

Dust cover of Alexander Borell's book "Konica - mon amour" (1974)

This booklet is quite remarkable in several respects. Above all it demonstrates how much our thoughts and feeling did change during the past decades. The book title probably was intended to signal a cosmopolitan view of the world as it is clearly reminding of the much more serious cinema movie "Hiroshima - mon amour" Nowadays this might easily be regarded as inappropriate.

The readers are guided through the 175 book pages by the fictitious couple Monica and Ronny. Monica, in typical 1970s' gender behaviour, explains that she bought this Konica camera simply because its name was so similar to her own first name!

Ronny continues by telling the readers that it was of utmost importance to always take the camera along when going outside. The somewhat bizarre documentation of a terrible car accident is used to explain that one might make a lot of money in those cases by selling fresh accident of photographs to an insurance company. Further examples are mini skirt photographs (which are considered as a criminal act today) and the documentation of a motor boat turnover accident.

Alltogether the storyline and presentation type might be considered as entertaining and amusing but somewhat bizarre as well.

Nevertheless we are going to following Monica and Ronny, not by making mini skirt scenario photographs but instead by using their macro technique for tardigrade photography (part I, as shown here). The next issue (part II) will present the results gained by means of a more elaborate bellows/dedicated repro objective combination and part III with a classical microscope setup will conclude the small series. So, let's start with the consumer macro objective technology of the 1970s:

Konica "Hexanon" macro objective (55/3.5) and optional 1:1 adapter.

This old objective can be adapted to a modern digital camera and works fine with the automatic shutter control (time control):

Sony Nex-5N camera with mechnical NEX-Konica adapter and a "Hexanon" macro objective (shown here without the 1:1 Adapter which can be mounted between the Nex adapter and the macro objective).

At this point nostalgia feelings came over us and we felt compelled to make a few classical photographs, in sweet memory of those past 1970s:

When returning to our tardigrades the scenario will be definitely smaller:

Echiniscus tardigrades in the dry state (so-called "tuns") on a moss leaf, in comparison with a 1 Cent coin. Photographed by means of a Sony Nex-5N camera with a Konica Hexanon macro objective 55/3.5 plus 1:1 adapter.

When zooming in we get this:

Echiniscus Tardigrades in the dry state (so-called "tuns") on a moss leaf, photographed by means of a Konica "Hexanon" macro objective dating back to the 1970s. Detail cropped from the image above. The moss leaf measures 2 mm in length.

In the next issue we will go one step further and discuss a classical bellows macro photography setup which is able to provide a better macro capability, Stay tuned!

© Text, images and video clips by  Martin Mach  (webmaster@baertierchen.de).
Water Bear web base is a licensed and revised version of the German language monthly magazine  Bärtierchen-Journal . Style and grammar amendments by native speakers are warmly welcomed.

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