Last night - earwig and woodlice

[GardenersHelper]

I had a brief look around in the garden last night. Not much around, but I found a springtail - and failed miserably with it even though it was one of the easier (larger, cylindrical) ones and wasn't moving around (although the bush it was on was moving. But that wasn't the problem. Even the ones that were in focus weren't very good. I need to work on that).

Anyway, I found some larger, easier subjects, much more my type of thing.

These images were captured with my FZ200 with Raynox 150, and KX800 twin flash. They were processed in DXO Optics Pro and Lightroom. These are taken from this album at Flickr.

I cheated with the first two. There were horrible highlight patches on the earwig's head. I cloned them out.

1 This earwig was a nice size, but but it was in a rather difficult to get at and difficult to illuminate position. The bendy arms on the KX800 were very useful, but I couldn't get the focusing light to play on the subject even though it too is on a flexible arm.


0811 02 2016_02_03 P1170923_DxO LR 1300h-2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

2 I don't think it liked the light. It moved after the first couple of shots. It didn't move far and was, just, still get atable.

0811 03 2016_02_03 P1170924_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

3 These woodlice were on the front face of a piece of wood at ground level with a top down view of the scene blocked by branches, so I could only capture images head on (i.e. top down from the perspective of the subjects) . I followed this one briefly as it wandered around until it disappeared from view.

0811 06 2016_02_03 P1170974_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

4

0811 08 2016_02_03 P1170976_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

5

0811 09 2016_02_03 P1170977_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

6

0811 10 2016_02_03 P1170978_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

7 This was one of the smaller ones the big one was wandering amongst.

0811 13 2016_02_03 P1170990_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

8 This is the nearest I could get to a side view of any of them. The camera was jammed up against the edge of a shed, one of the diffusers getting a bit crushed. Luckily they are proving to be quite resilient, and easy to mend when necessary.

0811 16 2016_02_03 P1170999_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

 

[Paul Iddon]

Great winter set - I hate earwigs, but do like to see them photographed well, and you have photographed therm well.

Paul.

 

[G.K.Jnr.]

Good set of images Nick, with nice comp' & detail.

George.

 

[hoftwi]

To more I see your images, the more impressive of your lighting!!!! great found and good shots Nick

 

[GardenersHelper]

To more I see your images, the more impressive of your lighting!!!! great found and good shots Nick

Thanks Icy. But did you see this in the top post? - "I cheated with the first two. There were horrible highlight patches on the earwig's head. I cloned them out."

So, lighting not so good I'm afraid, at least not when it comes to shiny curved surfaces. Still the same old, depressing story.

Some of the other lighting effects are post processing too. In Lightroom I'm using gradients more and more to re-balance the look of the lighting. For some reason, that doesn't feel like cheating like cloning does to me. And even odder, cloning to get rid of distractions in the background doesn't trouble me. It's cloning on the subject that I feel very uneasy about. That's why I mentioned it. I wouldn't want to mislead anyone about my lighting setup, or for them to be disappointed if they decide try something similar and find problems that I hadn't mentioned.

 

[hoftwi]

You might have done some PP, but the overall lighting is still very good. As mentioned that you cloned out the highlight patches on the earwig, that's something I couldn't do if I have a bad shot with horrible highlight.No doubt that it requires the skill of PP but from your last few series, the lighting is good and even.

Think I have to learn more about cloning and other PP skills, every time I look up the tutorials on the internet, it gave me a headache, then I gave up

 

[GardenersHelper]

Think I have to learn more about cloning and other PP skills, every time I look up the tutorials on the internet, it gave me a headache, then I gave up

What software have you looked at tutorials for? (Some is much harder to use/slower to learn about than others.)

I think it really is useful to get to grips with at least some basic post processing. Even quick and simple changes can make a huge difference to some photos.

 

[hoftwi]

I use Lightroom 5. Crop, +/- exposure, clarity, sharpness, white balance are all I used on my photos. I did try to use cloning and graduated filer, adjustment brush but with no success.

 

[plamen_gb]

The first one is my favorite, fairly unusual subject when it comes to the macro shots on the forum, good to see it

 

[GardenersHelper]

I use Lightroom 5. Crop, +/- exposure, clarity, sharpness, white balance are all I used on my photos. I did try to use cloning and graduated filer, adjustment brush but with no success.

I find I use Blacks, Whites, Shadows and Highlights a lot.

Have you tried the Auto Tone function (in Library mode). I'm not usually into automated things like that, and I find it tends to make the image too bright, but I've taken to using it and then (still in Library mode) turning the Exposure down either by one stop (the double left-pointing triangles under Auto Tone), or 1/3 stop down (the single left-pointing triangle), used twice.

Auto Tone adjusts Whites and Blacks so that the whole of the available dynamic range is used, and adjusts Shadows and Highlights too. I find that (after turning down the Exposure) it usually gives me a good starting point. After that I often only adjust the Exposure a little bit up or down, completing the basic processing, although I sometimes adjust the Whites, Blacks, Shadows or Highlights a little bit.

I then go on to any local stuff with graduated filters or (much less often) cloning. or the adjustment brush (but I hardly ever use that these days, because I think graduated filters work better for me, and it is done in a moment, unlike fiddling around with the adjustment brush, which can take ages).

Have you watched any of the Adobe TV channel Lightroom video tutorials? I found them very useful indeed.

I think cloning is one of the weaker parts of Lightroom. It is a strange implementation, and can I find be very frustrating to use. I've got more used to it now though.