Wot's 'e doing in here?

Cobra

Gregory House
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The real Chris
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And not a single red panda in sight @Tintin124 Bryn :p
A fuchsia was the victim this time.

Ok so I thought I'd have a play in here for a change,
I dabble from time to time, but I'm pretty crap as you can see.
70-200 2.8 is, (f/11 1/200th) with a load of AF macro tubes totalling 56mm,
OCF and manual focus, as they bring the focal length down to about 10cm
from 1.2m

So, this is what it looks like about 4x life size



IMG_5477
by Chris-the-falconer, on Flickr

A few of its bits (technical term that )


IMG_5462
by Chris-the-falconer, on Flickr



IMG_5461
by Chris-the-falconer, on Flickr


And my first attempt at stacking too, 10 images, I thought that the more you used the better the result.
Wrong again :D



Fuschia
by Chris-the-falconer, on Flickr
 
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Very nice shooting for a dabble... composition needs a little work.

but that 70-200 f2.8 is sure a sharp lens. Some work required on the stack as you have artifacts around a couple of stamen heads but it has potential and the key to it is not just taking loads of shots its picking the right ones to use @TimmyG and @nass are the experts that I know at it.
 
Very nice shooting for a dabble... composition needs a little work.
but that 70-200 f2.8 is sure a sharp lens. Some work required on the stack as you have artifacts around a couple of stamen heads but it has potential and the key to it is not just taking loads of shots its picking the right ones to use @TimmyG and @nass are the experts that I know at it.
Cheers Bryn, I appreciate the feedback, and all duly noted (y)

TBH as you say, it was a "dabble" I've had a few concerns recently about the actual sharpness of the lens,
(long story) and I thought this would be a good test, seems it passed :D
This was just all quickly set up on my "bench"

Again TBH, I've got a lot of macro stuff, dedicated Canon lens,
Canon ring flash, Raynox, all gathering dust.
I quite enjoyed the little experiment, perhaps I should "play more" :)
 
Cheers Bryn, I appreciate the feedback, and all duly noted (y)

TBH as you say, it was a "dabble" I've had a few concerns recently about the actual sharpness of the lens,
(long story) and I thought this would be a good test, seems it passed :D
This was just all quickly set up on my "bench"

Again TBH, I've got a lot of macro stuff, dedicated Canon lens,
Canon ring flash, Raynox, all gathering dust.
I quite enjoyed the little experiment, perhaps I should "play more" :)

You should open up a whole new world... macro is fascinating and would increase your whipsnade shots 10 fold ;)
 
.... and would increase your whipsnade shots 10 fold ;)
LOL Eye of the Tiger Eh?
(But I doubt they'd let me get that close, they are touchy like that, there :D)
 
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Looks like a decent enough setup to me. For stacking you want to try to ensure you get an image for each "slice" of focus overlapping with the previous one. Obviously if you miss out a particular section it can ruin your whole stack, but if you have too many images that duplicate the same area of focus, you are likely to get more alignment problems.

If you are doing "studio" stacks it's a good idea to get a macro rail and you should be able to get wide aperture shots with only a narrow DoF (lots of pics). Handheld or live subjects can be a bit more challenging so it's worth starting at high apertures and work up to narrower DoF as you get better. You'll no doubt still need to do a lot of post-processing work to get an acceptable result. Either way, images that duplicate the same area of focus are largely redundant, in an ideal world you want a single image for each focal point. There's probably some clever equation to calculate the optimal number of images depending on area to be covered and DoF.
 
@TimmyG
Thanks Tim I appreciate all that, and duly noted too (y)

I just basically laid the camera on a bench, with the subjust about 10Cm away.
I doubt that I'll ever need a rail though, not really my kind of "shooting"
But next step is to try and get something live,
/inspired by some of the stunning (Yours included) spider shots on here (y)
 
@Cobra
Yeah I did exactly the same thing when i first tried stacking, except i placed the camera on a book so I could move it easily. It was much easier with a rail though (I think it cost me about a tenner). Still, as you say, it's not my kind of shooting either and it rarely sees daylight. Shooting live subjects is much more fun :)
 
Nice to see you in here Chris
is there a tropical butterfly house near to you ?
They are excellent places to try out macro lots of subjects and tropical butterflies are stunning too
 
Nice to see you in here Chris
is there a tropical butterfly house near to you ?
They are excellent places to try out macro lots of subjects and tropical butterflies are stunning too
Hi Pete :wave:

Not as far as I am aware TBH.
I've tried butterflies in the past, at various places.
they always end up as a disaster, no idea why,
they just do :(
Never mind, I've got loads of spiders in garden, they cling to the garage wall for the "late sun"
They are next on my "hit list" :D
 
Stacking flowers in a vase is actually quite tricky because they tend to wilt/droop, and that of course throws up the alignment. I just started by hunting flies in the garden and reversing a lens to shoot them :)
 
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