I have been fooling around and built some kind of extreme macro lens for my camera. Well, essentially I made photos through a magnifier glass. If you have not yet seen the images on Facebook or Flickr (click and choose “older” to see more flowers and berries, and “newer” to see spiders and moss), go check them out. Some are pretty nice, I think, and I am pleased enough with the outcome that I made postcards from about 30 of them. I have been using my HP printer with some kind of glossy presentation paper which looks great – but is a little too expensive. Now I am looking for a way to make quality prints of the photos, maybe a little larger than the standard photo size, and also I would like to get some of them printed as postcards. Do you print yourself or do you get your photos printed somewhere? Any recommendations as to where to turn?
Ich hab’ letztens mit meiner Kamera herumgespielt, und mir ein extrem Macro Objektiv gebastelt. Naja, vielleicht klingt das etwas zu hochtrabend. Im wesentlichen habe ich einfach durch eine Lupe hindurchphotographiert. Wenn du die Bilder noch nicht auf Facebook oder Flickr (wenn du auf “older” klickst gibt’s mehr Blumen und Früchte zu sehen, unter “newer” verstecken sich Spinnen und Moos) gesehen hast, kannst du sie nun hinter den links finden.
Jetzt bin ich auch der Suche nach einem Weg, schöne Abzüge/Drucke zu bekommen. Am liebsten ja Postkarten, aber so wie sich mir die Lage nach einer kurzen Suche darstellt, ist mir das entweder pro Karte zu teuer, oder die Mindestauflage zu hoch. Wie und wo lässt du Abzüge deiner Fotos machen? Irgendwelche Tips?
Beautiful photos and very ingenious thinking!
Thanks, Laura! I was a little disappointed that the distortion toward the edges of the photos is so tame. But I was rewarded with the pleasant surprise of vibrant colors, soft edges, and interesting views in general, and I am very happy with the outcome.
The next challenge will be to try this with mobile subjects. (Read: humans; plants have the advantage of endless patience with the photographer.)
These are such wonderful pictures.
As for printing, long ago I used a local printer who did a great job, but was rather too expensive. Then I tried one of those mass-production cheap mail order postcard printers. They were ok, but not great. The quality could vary. I haven’t done that in several years, although it seems to me that there are far more options now, with online postcard printers. I have no idea what the selection is like in Germany, but I suspect there must be quite a few options for “real” postcard printing. It’s nice to have some professionally printed cards you can sell or give out. Printing at home is only good in small quantities. Do you know anyone who’s used moo.com? I’ve heard good things about them, but don’t have any personal experience using them. I’ve been curious to maybe do a small order with them to try them out.
I talked to Beate (of BeatePhotography: http://www.beateknappe.de/) in the meantime. She said she made very good experiences with moo. The service where I have my business card printed wanted me to take at least 250 cards with the same motif. Moo is great also because only the total number of prints, not the number of pictures is important. I thought they only delivered to the US so never checked them out before. But now I am going to give them a try.
Beate quite convincingly argued against printing at home. (The effort, skill, time to learn, and the investment in equipment needed to match the quality of professional prints does not really add up against having them printed, it seems.) I might still give it a try with the papers she recommended because I like the immediacy of printing myself.