This article appeared in the March/April 2002 issue of PT. To purchase this issue and receive this and other valuable articles in this issue, CLICK HERE: Ship within the U.S. | Ship outside the U.S.

Our passion is photographing the fossil world. Magnification permits us to capture exciting new and unexpected images as colorful minerals and artful patterns become apparent. However, making small things larger creates problems: it accentuates vibrations that cause image blurring, depth of field becomes less, color saturation diminishes, and dust becomes visible. You might think these problems would require a change in camera and film, but that is not true.

Camera, Lenses and Keeping it Steady
We have used large, medium and 35mm format cameras, and find little difference in the end product. The larger film size allows you to capture images with more photosensitive grains; thus larger prints usually can be made. For most of our work, however, we use normal lenses with either bellows or extension tubes. Working with bellows is more convenient because magnification and field can be varied easily. Adding additional extension tubes to the bellows doesn’t help; while further magnification can be achieved, vignetting occurs. Often, we get by with a quarter-inch ring on our Hasselblad, if we use a 16-exposure film back that hides darkened corners.

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