Stained glass macro

Purchased the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro USM lens just this past week and was keen on trying it out, see what photo fun there was to have and what results I could already achieve with it.

An ideal macro photo subject to try out seemed to be a stained glass lamp. A sort of Tiffany style lamp, it features beautiful, differently colored pieces of stained glass bound together by a metallic wire mesh that creates a unique light and color spectacle when lit.

While shot in daylight conditions, did turn on the lamp itself and set it further away from any windows to have as much light as possible come through the stained glass from within.

Most shots save the last two were made with f-stop set to f/2.8, which proved rather challenging to obtain ideal focus on the glass surface as the lens has such a narrow dept of field at that f-stop.

Depending on the focus set, it would have the exterior of the glass sharp but the slightest movement would already set the focus deeper into the glass itself.

Quite amazing to see with such a macro lens when looking through the viewfinder, how the focus can shift into the glass revealing tiny bubbles and other particles inside you wouldn’t notice with the focus set further away.

Am not particularly a fan of churches, but I can appreciate the architecture and certainly the beautiful stained glass windows many have.

Hence why I wanted to photograph this stained glass lamp as the different colors, textures in it and the way light plays through the glass can be quite stunning.

Amazing how the color of the glass, way it was created can give an entirely different aura to the light that comes through onto the photo.

While the top images have a very warm tint to them, the ones of the greener glass partitions definitely have a more cool feeling to them.

Didn’t crop or touch up any of these shots, save downsize them.

Though wonder if I couldn’t have cropped out a few sections from the original sized canvas to show you some of the amazing details that don’t show up as well once you downsize the image.

This final shot stepped back a bit to give a better idea of the mesh and the different glass pieces in it.

Set the f-stop to f/7.1 to get more depth of field to work with and have more of the lamp’s curved surface with optimum sharpness.