Another snowflake / snow crystal from a few days ago... I rather like the cat face in the center (looks like a cat to me at least...)
This is one of the smaller crystals I've worked with recently - just a couple of millimeters across. I used a Pentax K-3 and reverse mounted 50mm f.28 macro lens with 220mm of extension between the lens and the body to get the needed magnification. Click on the image for a larger view.
... with a simple plate on one arm.
Another shot form last week. Pentax K-3, DFA 50mm f2.8 macro. Like all of my snow crystal images, taken in my garage in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Click on the image for a larger file.
I shot this snow crystal in 2002 on slide film (probably E100S). By today's standards it is a rather poor picture - I still use film a lot but for snow crystals, digital is definitely better. (Lower noise, better edge definition.) But for me this was a watershed image in that it was in this shoot that I figured out how to get consistent results. The setup I used to take this image was totally different than what I used in the years before, and still is at the heart of what I do these days.
I proceeded to shoot snow crystals on E100S and Velvia for the next couple of years before upgrading to a DSLR.
Shooting snow crystals on film was pretty challenging - in the early days (1998 and the few years following) I used manual flash and controlled exposure by controlling the flash to subject distance, which I worked out on in a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet running on a 486 DOS computer outside in snow... It felt high tech at the time! Those were fun days.
I'm posting this now in response to a query regarding the Star of David in snow crystals. If you look at this in a certain way you can see a Star of David embedded in this image. Jon Nelson's excellent article "The Six-fold Nature of Snow" helps clarify why snowflakes form in six sided shapes.
Winter is truly here - at last! It was -8F (-22C) this morning with a howling wind. By mid afternoon snow was falling and for brief intervals some nicely formed snowflakes fell. I spent several hours outside, partially shooting and partially shoveling, and managed to eek out a few good photographs.
This is probably the best of the day (click on the image for a larger view):
Lastly - a wee small crystal, one of the last shots for the day:
All images made with a Pentax K-3, DFA 50mm f2.8 macro (reverse mounted on bellows and tubes) and AF360FGZ flash.
A gnarly old tree at a crossroads in the Allegan Forest.
Pentax Mz-S, FA 50 f1.7, Arista Edu 200 in Rodinal 1:50.
More trees in the Allegan Forest, taken on December 29, 2014:
Pentax mz-S, FA 50 f1.7, Arista Edu Ultra 200, Rodinal 1:50, 11 min @ 20C.