Circuits

See hi-res here (warning: large file link)

We’re doing a bi-weekly photo contest on the local VW web forum. This week’s theme was “up close”, so I submitted the above image. Taken with my Nikkor 60mm micro + extension tube for true 1:1. This is almost too much magnification; every speck of dust and grime was visibly evident in my first shots. No amount of cleaning/wiping/blowing could get it to be pristine under the mighty eye of the macro lens. I also had a hard time getting the composition how I liked it at such a close range. At closest focus, I was looking at maybe a half-inch area of the circuit (itself a small controller board on the bottom of a 3.5″ SATA hard drive).

For these reasons, I decided to back off a little and take in a wider field of view. The resulting shot was an area probably about 1.5″ across, which offered much more flexibility in composition (and much more forgiveness in dust pickup).

Shot setup:

• Nikon D700 on el-cheapo Sunpak tripod, pointing straight down on hard drive on dining room table
• Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 micro + PK-13 extension tube – manual focus, aperture, shutter
• Nikon SB-800 flash on camera, bouncing toward nearby wall up and to camera right

Here is an “outtake” at actual 1:1, before I cleaned the dust off as thoroughly as I could:

And a wide shot of the hard drive controller, showing the size of that 1:1 macro area: