A few more from the Garden

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davholla

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David
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I found this near the house and took a photo in my garden - I also took a stack which I have not processed yet, but this is ok
StagBeetleIMG_5058 by davholla2002, on Flickr

These below are all handheld stacks

On fathers day the heat was awful and as I was standing by the door to cope with it, I noticed this and rushed out (fortunately I didn't get burnt)
RingletIMG_5273 by davholla2002, on Flickr
Some moths from the moth trap any ids?
Moth IMG_5510 by davholla2002, on Flickr

MothIMG_5509 by davholla2002, on Flickr

Moth IMG_5460 by davholla2002, on Flickr


Moth IMG_5486 by davholla2002, on Flickr

Micromoth stack EF7A5371 by davholla2002, on Flickr

I am not so keen on this one but I would like an id
Micromoth EF7A5265 by davholla2002, on Flickr
 
Andy Johnson said:
Stags great Dave, wish i could find one. Can't help you id the moths but the butterfly is a Speckled wood not a Ringlet.
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Thank you both, Stag beetles are not too difficult to find where I live I have seen 2 females this year, no males yet sadly. The butterfly is much more unusual.
 
I like the beetle. What flash and diffusion arrangement are you using? Is the illumination a little harsh perhaps?

I'm wondering about the merits of the type of the stacking approach you are using. You are using quite slow shutter speeds and I think this may be making the sharpness/detail suffer a bit. From the ISO and aperture it looks like faster shutter speeds wouldn't have been practical. I'm wondering if you might do better in terms of sharpness/detail using flash for single-shots with smaller apertures.
 
GardenersHelper said:
I like the beetle. What flash and diffusion arrangement are you using? Is the illumination a little harsh perhaps?

I'm wondering about the merits of the type of the stacking approach you are using. You are using quite slow shutter speeds and I think this may be making the sharpness/detail suffer a bit. From the ISO and aperture it looks like faster shutter speeds wouldn't have been practical. I'm wondering if you might do better in terms of sharpness/detail using flash for single-shots with smaller apertures.
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The beetle was just the built in flash.
I think you are right about the stacking, I have been experimenting with Iain Lawries technique
https://www.flickr.com/photos/daddy...9qy-bCVTE4-bcCFTM-nVkUTG-Hajf2J-aYjbRc-bo7PpD

And
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W_9m0nBFCk

I particularly using his technique as he is using canon gear so it is useful for me to copy.

But looking at the exif of an image he let me practise with I think I should be using f5.0 and faster shutter speeds - this is my processing but not from my photos
Examplestack by davholla2002, on Flickr
 
davholla said:

Examplestack by davholla2002, on Flickr
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For comparison purposes, here is a single shot image of the same species. It used natural light, 1/400 sec, ISO 800 and the equivalent of f/28 with your camera. (It is resized to about the same height as your stacked example. The 1300 pixel high version at Flickr may look a bit sharper.) It has been processed from a JPEG original, with hardly any cropping.


1158 135 1081 03 G3 P1340183_JPEG DXO 11 01c SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Also for comparison, here is a single shot image of a Speckled Wood, resized to about the same size as your image above (with a 1300 pixel high version over at Flickr). This one was also shot with natural light, in this case using 1/200 sec, ISO 200 and aperture equivalent to f/14 with your camera. This one too was processed from a JPEG original.


0454 71 reprocessed (from JPEG original) P1300910_JPEG DXO 11 01c SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

This one had a fair sized crop.


Speckled wood crop by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
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Nice post I am not sure if f28 would work so well with my camera - I don't know if aperture x equivalent is always a perfect comparison but I will have to try and experiment when I get a minute. I used to use much smaller apertures but I don't think there was any benefit.
IMG_7899shieldbugonfinger by davholla2002, on Flickr


(notice how similar this Colombian shieldbug is to ones in the UK, butterflies on the other hand are much more distinctive.
 
davholla said:
Nice post I am not sure if f28 would work so well with my camera - I don't know if aperture x equivalent is always a perfect comparison
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Pretty much as far as I can tell. There are some 70D (f/28) to FZ200 (f/8) real world comparisons in Examples 1, 2 and 3 linked from this post in my journey thread. Creating real world comparisons that are tightly like for like is difficult. I think the third example is the most nearly like for like in terms of the images, with the second example next closest to like for like.

But there is no doubt in my mind that, to my eye at least, f/28 and similar can produce very acceptable results with an APS-C camera. Here are a couple of f/32 examples from the 70D which I thought turned out ok.


1182 06 06 IMG_3423_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


1182 07 07 IMG_3579_DxO 0100RAW01cP SP7 LR6 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


davholla said:
but I will have to try and experiment when I get a minute. I used to use much smaller apertures but I don't think there was any benefit.
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DoF roughly doubles for each two stops decrease in aperture. And sharpness/detail reduces of course. You know how I feel about the trade-off, but obviously opinions differ about that. :)

davholla said:
IMG_7899shieldbugonfinger by davholla2002, on Flickr


(notice how similar this Colombian shieldbug is to ones in the UK, butterflies on the other hand are much more distinctive.
Click to expand...

That is indeed very similar.
 
Good examples, I will get my dead insects out the freezer and compare the different settings (you can't really test on living insects because they might move).
 
davholla said:
Good examples, I will get my dead insects out the freezer and compare the different settings (you can't really test on living insects because they might move).
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With small examples you might want to set lightly larger ("nominal") apertures on the camera. For example, if you are at 1:1 and you set f/16 on the camera then the effective aperture (the one that matters) is f/32.

Effective aperture = Nominal aperture x (1 + magnification)

So for 1:2 magnification with f/16 set on the camera

Effective aperture = 16 x (1 + 1/2) = f/24

At 1:1, 16 x (1+1) = f/32

At 2:1, 16 x (1+2) = f/48

The formula is an approximation, but quite a good one apparently.
 
I tried today with my 60mm and I found no benefit over f20 but sadly I didn't have time to do a proper study (I can't find all the apertures I thought that I used). I will upload them if you really want but they are not that interesting.
 
davholla said:
I tried today with my 60mm and I found no benefit over f20 but sadly I didn't have time to do a proper study (I can't find all the apertures I thought that I used). I will upload them if you really want but they are not that interesting.
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No need. :)

We must each find out for ourselves what works best for us.
 
GardenersHelper said:
No need. :)

We must each find out for ourselves what works best for us.
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True but don't you think different lens have different aperture sweet spots? The obvious one are the Canon MPE65 and 60 mm which have very different sweet spots. I think you are probably right that f18 would be better than f11 for me though with the 60mm lens.

I am not sure to honest btw that if all my camera stuff were stolen that I would go with Canon again the post focus stacking of some competitors looks like a game changer.
 
davholla said:
Nick
I found an old one that I did at f20 (sadly not from my back garden). I think f20 might quite a good choice.
and f32 what do you think
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It's difficult to tell with only small versions to play with, but it looks to me like both might be fine with some enhancement of clarity and/or sharpening (and some adjustment of highlights/exposure in the f32 one especially on the right hand side).

I'm more confident about the f/20 one. Possibly f/32 was too destructive of detail in the second, bearing in mind that effective aperture reduces with magnification. But my guess would be that this was quite a large subject and so the magnification would have been quite low so that effect of reducing the effective aperture wouldn't have had much effect. The f/32 examples I gave above were pure f/32, unaffected by the (significant in those cases) magnification reducing the effective aperture (because close-up lenses don't change effective aperture).

Especially in cases like the second, with the background some distance away, you can pull the aperture right down while still having the subject separated. (There is the same effect in my f/32 examples above, especially the second one.) That doesn't work for the first of these of course, but using a larger aperture wouldn't help much in that respect where the subject is in amongst foliage, but I do like the effect of being able to get a good look at all of the subject.
 
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