Matches - Macro shot.

As noted in my previous post, I set out to imitate this photo using the cheap macro options I have available. Here's the best shot that I've achieved so far:

This shot was taken using my manual 50mm Ricoh lens coupled with my modified extension tube set.  The extension tube was effectively 56mm long.  Shutter speed 0.8s aperture f/5.6.  Natural window light, using a white sheet of paper to reflect a little more light onto the lower left side of the matches.  The light was coming from the right hand side.

The image has been cropped slightly (only 11% of the image width has been cropped of the sides).

The level of detail is pretty good, especially after some mild sharpening.  My shot at f/2 showed how poor my manual focusing was though, not spot on the end of the match heads.  Reducing the aperture down to f/5.6 gave me enough DoF to make much of the match heads look sharp though.

I think I should try to this again using artificial lighting.  Johnnytitan's original certainly had more dramatic lighting than mine and I think it really helped to bring out the detail in the match heads.  It also provided a nice yellow glow from the matches themselves.

Update:

I had another go using artificial lighting.  This involved a more complex set-up:

  

I took a couple of test shot to gauge my exposure (it's always a bit random using extension tubes it seems).

The first (left) indicated that I was a little to the left of the subject and that my exposure was a little on the high side.  The second shot had the glow of the yellow wood nicely centered,  exposure and focus looked good.

I stopped down the lens to f/8 and adjusted my shutter speed in manual mode.  Took another shot, oops, forgot to have it in RAW, so after downloading my shots I went back and had another go:

Final shot:

100% crop (no sharpening (click for full view to see at 100%)):

I was pretty happy with that, but after I compared my results to the original I realised that my contrast wasn't high enough, so I tried boosting that in RAW processing in photoshop.

A little closer, but still not quite there.  Oh well I didn't achieve the same level of detail, sharpness and contrast, but it was fun to try.  That's all I can be bothered trying.