Mark Cassino Photography

Focusing is the hardest task when photographing snowflakes - at least with my setup. All that extension gobbles up most of the light, so you are looking though a really dim finder. I mount the whole rig - camera, lens, extension - on a macro focusing rail, and move it it up and down to get things roughly in focus. Then I use the adjustable bellows to fine tune the focusing. Of course, just taking your hand off the bellows takes things slightly out of focus, so the real challenge is figuring out just where to set the bellows - slightly off target - so that it will wind up in the right position when it is released. I don't want to make this sound like more of a challenge than it is - it's a lot easier than, say, hitting a baseball, and you have a lot more time to do it .