A. Lange & Söhne

Firstly, I have to thank Edwin for letting us know his secret of being able to take such breathtaking photos of his amazing collection, especially with all those close-up details of the movements and dials that all of us drool over!

So being heavily inspired by Edwin's fantastic works of art, I have bought a set of the extension tubes to try out and over the weekend I've had lots of fun trying to get as close as possible to the watch without bumping into it

I have to say I am very surprised with what turned out in the photos, showing the amount of work that Lange have put into such a microscopic scale! I even wonder because it's not even visible to the bare eye, that effort is there only for the people that know! I hope you guys don't mind me sharing what I see through the lens and extension tube... please pardon the dust particles in the photos... Sydney is a VERY dusty place! and also pardon the slightly off white balance!

First up.. the iconic big date.. nothing spectacular.. just that I haven't seen it so close up before...


Then the second hand at 6 o'clock.. I have seen many pictures of Lange watches having concentric circles on the dial where the second hand is, and with my bare eyes, I could not see any signs of circles inside the second hand subdial. Before I have the extension tube, the closest photo to the seconds subdial still reveal no surprises. Needless to say I was disappointed about that and I thought the Langematik missed out on such work of detail... until I took this photo:

It all looked normal to me when viewing the full picture, but when I zoomed into 100% I was in awe!!

The circles were so fine, that there were around 15 circles spanning the length of the second markers, so for the whole of the seconds sub dial, there would be over 100 concentric circles not visible to the naked eye! Boy, am I excited that they are indeed there!!!
Then it's the meticulously engraved balance cock:

and zoomed in... I can't believe someone did this BY HAND! Simply beautiful! The fact that you can see tiny irregularities in the patterns makes each piece even more unique!

And finally arguably the most beautiful automatic rotor in the world of horology, and I'm not the first person to have a photo this close...

and again, in greater detail... however, can anybody confirm whether the rotor is hand engraved? The little "pebble-like" texture, must be a huge amount of work if it's done by hand, especially having to do the letters and the brushed effect around that texture as well!


The more details I see of my Langematik, the more I love it!!

For a superb Lange Realisation...

There are no cheap or expensive Lange...There are all great watches!

Congrats for these pics, and ...for your watch, of course!

Best,

Nicolas

It's all these magnificently crafted details on a Lange movement that have made me a huge fan of the brand.  Looking forward to seeing more of your photos!

Cheers,
Daos

I don't believe that I have ever seen such a close up photo of the "Swan Neck"

Bravo!

This message has been edited by Topcat30093 on 2009-09-06 01:54:24

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I have to say owning a Lange really whipped up my appetite for doing macro shots! It would be such a pity if I am wearing this every day but cannot see the huge amount of work that have gone into every tiny bit of detail!

Hope these photos will make us even more appreciative (as if we're not already!) of what the geniuses at Glashutte achieved!

Thanks again for all the kind words!

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I've always admired people who dares to take Marcro shots of their watches.
I personally am very afraid of it
It will bring up something that otherwise can't be seen with naked eyes or a 10x loupe and drive me CRAZY....hahaha
I don't think I have a stomach for this. Thank you for sharing and allows me to see what Lange brings to us in close up
Cheers,
CL

STUNNING photos......

Thanks for sharing them with us

Cheers

Great shots! Thanks for sharing.

Great macros! Thanks for sharing.

Sensational photos!!!!!

OMG, so nice that I can no longer claim that I like photography.....
Thank you for sharing!

Best,
Ken

It's my utmost pleasure to share the pics with everyone!! I know the people that appreciate the most of what Lange made for our wrists and share the same passion as I do are all of you buddies here!

I've learnt so much from all the experts/collectors/connoiseurs on this forum, this is just my very little "contribution" in comparison....

Ken, thanks for the compliment. Your photos and collection are nothing less than STUNNING!!! I always wonder how you guys can take those professional looking photos with the black background?? Is it some kind of a black box?

...about the photography.  Uncle Edwin posted his set-up in his recent post on other site.  Check it out.  I use similar set-up (I was too lazy to DIY, though).  As a Nikon user, I am tempted to get the macro flash system (R1C1).  How did you do the lighting?  So close, f/9, must have relatively slow shutter speed, but the second hand is barely blurry.
IMO, you have nice camera and use the "correct" f/ number for sharp image and you know what you are doing.  Keep up the good work and share with us!

Ken

Thanks for letting me know Ken! Sometimes I'll miss reading a post here and there so I haven't noticed Uncle Edwin's set up post! So I have to check it out! 

I've only started learning photography (and by that I mean with an (D)SLR and not a point a shoot) in my spare time around 4 years ago (first a D70 and then last year a D90)... have been a VERY slow learning curve as I didn't have too much time to play with it. Most of the time I'll just take photos when travelling. So I know about f-stops and basic things like that but I have no experience with more complicated things like light source control etc that you and Uncle Edwin get to. With these photos, I just took them at home (at night) on the dining table under the light and I have the watch parallel to the light so it doesn't reflect. I had to use a higher f-stop because I took some photos at lower f-stops (with faster shutter speed), but the DOF is unbelievably shallow (even more so with the extension tubes - when focussed on the balance cock, the back of it where movement model is etched was already out of focus!). I used the 1s delayed shutter function on the D90 to reduce shutter vibration perhaps that's why the seconds hand wasn't too blurry!

Hopefully I'll learn a few more techniques coming up and be able to share more photos with you guys!! Thanks for the encouragement!!

Thanks a lot for the pics.

Fr.Xavier