Springtails and ... something else fairly small

GardenersHelper

GardenersHelper

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Nick
Edit My Images
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I went out into the garden last night to test a reversed 14-42 kit lens on my Panasonic G3 but I very quickly discovered that I wasn't going to get on with it. I had taken my G5 with me so I could do pairs of shots comparing reversed lens and close-up lens captures, so I put away the reversed lens setup and just used close-up lenses.

These images were captured hand-held using autofocus with my MSN-202 close-up lens on a 45-175 lens on the G5, with Venus Optics KX800 twin flash with shallow hybrid diffusers. The images were batch processed in DXO Optics Pro and then individually adjusted in Lightroom. These 8 are taken from this album at Flickr.

1

0851 03 2016_03_14 P1130007_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

2

0851 05 2016_03_14 P1130024_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

3

0851 07 2016_03_14 P1130041-2_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

4

0851 08 2016_03_14 P1130104_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

5

0851 09 2016_03_14 P1130047_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

6

0851 13 2016_03_14 P1130138_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

7 Don't know what this one is.

0851 19 2016_03_14 P1130188_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

8

0851 20 2016_03_14 P1130207_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
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Seems like you're having a lot a fun with these!

May I suggest to tone down the highlights?
 
Kodiak Qc said:
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Seems like you're having a lot a fun with these!

May I suggest to tone down the highlights?
Click to expand...

Flash highlights are the bane of my (photographic) life, as I've been documenting (and ranting about) on and off in my Journey thread. Hate them. They may have been worse in this case because of the narrow (front to back) diffusers I was using. I'm going to put deeper ones back on and see if that makes a difference. I toned down the nastiest of them (locally), in the last two images, and the global highlights are turned right down in most of the images anyway. The trouble with local adjustments on these highlights is that you can only get so far with highlight reduction, at which point it turns to cloning, which may or may not be possible, and which in any case generally I can't be bothered with unless the image is special in some way, which none of these is.
 
GardenersHelper said:
Flash highlights are the bane of my (photographic) life,…
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•

I had to look up for "bane"… thanks, another word learned!

May I suggest the use of a diffusion screen… however small
it may be? Even a piece of paper will do! This would have the
benefit of taming the highlights within the take.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•

I had to look up for "bane"… thanks, another word learned!

May I suggest the use of a diffusion screen… however small
it may be? Even a piece of paper will do! This would have the
benefit of taming the highlights within the take.
Click to expand...

I really suggest you look at the link Nick posted above you will see the lengths he goes too for diffusion. :D (y)
 
Tintin124 said:
I really suggest you look at the link Nick posted above you will see the lengths he goes too for diffusion. :D (y)
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…will do later today, thanks!
 
Some really impressive shots Nick! Highlights aren't a problem at all, in-fact I'd say the lighting looks great! Also for such small subjects the detail and sharpness is superb, how much have you cropped them Nick, DoF looks very good indeed.
 
Nawty said:
Nick's thread is certainly one of the best threads on this site, if you can get through it all - it's immense - as it addresses so many different aspects of macro photography, photography in general ...
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Thanks Ned, that is really encouraging.

Nawty said:
... and challenges many assumptions that people hold.
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I really like that bit!
 
ChrisA said:
Some good finds there - no idea on the beetles id. Personally not finding the highlights in these at all bad or distracting.
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Thanks Chris. In the first two I found the reflections of the flash on the subject's head a bit disturbing because I don't recall seeing that before with (those sorts of) springtails. I'm wondering whether the shallow diffusers I was using are particularly "hot". I've previously only used them as part of testing reversed lenses and haven't got far enough with that yet to start worrying about image quality, hot spots etc - just getting something in focus as a first step would be nice. Next time I'll use my deeper "midi hybrid diffusers" and see if they do any better (if I can find similar subjects).
 
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Neil Burnell said:
Some really impressive shots Nick! Highlights aren't a problem at all, in-fact I'd say the lighting looks great! Also for such small subjects the detail and sharpness is superb, how much have you cropped them Nick, DoF looks very good indeed.
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Thanks Neil. Please see my reply above to Chris about the highlights.

As to cropping, they were cropped for composition, with any element of crop for DoF a side effect rather than being the primary reason for doing the crop. Here are the crops for the ones I posted here.

Crops for images posted at Talk Photography 1024w by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

I did do some deeper crops which were going for crop for DoF effects, but I was too uncomfortable with the image quality to post any of them here. Here is the deepest crop I did, and the 1300 pixel high result which I rejected on the grounds of insufficient DoF coverage, clarity and detail. (I have three levels, roughly speaking. Ones I'm prepared to post here, ones I'll post to Flickr but would feel uncomfortable posting here, and ones I don't want to post to Flickr. I only keep originals for what I post to Flickr. This one was in the third category - to be thrown out during the next cleanup.)


Crop for Deepest crop for DOF (not retained) by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


Deepest crop for DOF (not retained) P1130100_DxO LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
Great set of images Nick, spot on composition, very fine detail, I have no problems with the highlights, lighting looks pretty good to me.(y)

George.
 
•

So Nick, I found sometime today and I cooked this
as an exemple of taming the highlights…

fairly%20smallpp.jpg
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•
So Nick, I found sometime today and I cooked this
as an exemple of taming the highlights…
Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to do this Daniel. I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner but as I think I mentioned I have been off on other tracks for a few days.

Now I come to look carefully at your edit I have to say that I am very surprised at what I see. I wonder if some of it might be because your version used the Adobe RGB colour space. When I tried to paste my version into yours to make an animated gif in Photoshop I got this error message:



I then posted your version into mine, which Photoshop didn't complain about, so presumably it converted from AdobeRGB to sRGB. I don't know, does conversion from AdobeRGB to sRGB cause massive changes in colours and/or brightness?

Anyway, here is the resultant animated gif comparing the version I posted with your (presumably now converted to sRGB) edited version.


Kodiak and GA edits comparison by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

I was not surprised when you originally suggested toning down the highlights because I had been concerned with highlights with this image. The areas outlined below in red are the areas I was concerned about, especially the area shown with a double red line around it. I had selectively reduced the brightness of this area, but I believe it had lost significant structure/detail because of over-exposure, leaving the animal looking as if it had alopecia.


Highlights GA found troublesome by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

I was therefore surprised to see in your edited version that these areas appeared to me to be worse (brighter) than in the my posted version. Also, the hairs on its back seem to me to have an excessively bright, indeed harsh look to them. Meanwhile, the rest of the image (the ground on which the insect was standing), which seemed unproblematic to me in the posted version, has changed considerably, now being much darker and having taken on a look that, frankly, I find rather odd, and unpleasing, perhaps to do with the colours.

I assume you wanted to make the insect stand out against the background, making it brighter against a now darker (back)ground, but to me the appearance of the insect appears inconsistent with the appearance of the ground, with it seeming implausible that they were subject to the same lighting conditions.

I also note incidentally that the masking was poorly executed in the area below outlined in red, with the much brighter original surface showing through, which for me further reduces the credibility of the edited version.


Original ground showing through, and an odd straight line by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Also, a rather odd straight line has appeared in the area outlined by blue.

To my eye, and my way of thinking, I'm afraid your edit doesn't seem to have addressed the issue of problematic highlights, and has made other changes which I find incongruous, unconvincing and aesthetically unpleasing.

I will be very happy to be shown that I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick and misunderstood the problems with the image and your suggested solutions to them. It is of course by discussing such matters in detail and developing our understanding of what we are (and are not) seeing that we can make progress with our photography, and I am always open to be helped in this.
 
WingTsun said:
Nick, I personally agree with your original PP. I wonder if adding a little ND filter might help? PS certainly cools the reds if using auto-correct features but I don't think it makes for a better image or a more credible one.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dunc. Not sure that an ND filter would help. Wouldn't that just take everything down in brightness rather than differentially bringing down the highlights? (Which I think is what we're talking about here.) Mind you, I've been doing some more experiments with exposure for scenes with difficult flash highlights and have been wondering whether (even greater) underexposure may be the way to go, then raising the shadows and mid tones in PP (preceded by good noise reduction using DXO), rather than trying to pull down the highlights. (I need to write all this up in my Journey thread, which I've rather been ignoring with all the fun I've been having making videos.)

When you say auto-correct in PS, is that the same sort of thing as auto-tone in Lightroom? I'm finding that useful - my first move with a new set of images, before starting the selection process, is to auto-tone them all, which gets them sufficiently viewable for initial, rapid selection (my images are often underexposed). It seems to pull up the exposure too far in almost all cases, so I very often start image-specific PP by pulling it back down again, perhaps by 2/3 stop or so on average (I haven't been keeping track). But having done that it usually gives me a nice place to work from. When it doesn't I revert all the changes and mix the exposure, highlights, shadows, blacks, whites and contrast myself. But starting out with an auto-toned versions where I can is much faster and has speeded up my PP significantly.

I haven't noticed auto-tone changing colours. But then again, I haven't looked. I'll try to remember to watch for that.

Testudo Man said:
Superb set of images here Nick, nicely done.
Click to expand...

Thanks Paul.
 
GardenersHelper said:
Thanks Dunc. Not sure that an ND filter would help. Wouldn't that just take everything down in brightness rather than differentially bringing down the highlights? (Which I think is what we're talking about here.) Mind you, I've been doing some more experiments with exposure for scenes with difficult flash highlights and have been wondering whether (even greater) underexposure may be the way to go, then raising the shadows and mid tones in PP (preceded by good noise reduction using DXO), rather than trying to pull down the highlights. (I need to write all this up in my Journey thread, which I've rather been ignoring with all the fun I've been having making videos.)

When you say auto-correct in PS, is that the same sort of thing as auto-tone in Lightroom? I'm finding that useful - my first move with a new set of images, before starting the selection process, is to auto-tone them all, which gets them sufficiently viewable for initial, rapid selection (my images are often underexposed). It seems to pull up the exposure too far in almost all cases, so I very often start image-specific PP by pulling it back down again, perhaps by 2/3 stop or so on average (I haven't been keeping track). But having done that it usually gives me a nice place to work from. When it doesn't I revert all the changes and mix the exposure, highlights, shadows, blacks, whites and contrast myself. But starting out with an auto-toned versions where I can is much faster and has speeded up my PP significantly.

I haven't noticed auto-tone changing colours. But then again, I haven't looked. I'll try to remember to watch for that.



Thanks Paul.
Click to expand...

Morning Nick! Happy Easter! I sometimes select small areas and using a Topaz plugin I use the Graduated ND filter which seems to often work in these kind of situations. It's probably not the correct way to do it but it often works for me. In PS Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Colour. I normally will use those but they don't always get it right, in which case I'll either discard their correction of reduce it's percentage of opacity. I don't use LR so not sure what controls you have in there?

I have quite a few different softwares and plugins that I use together with PS. There's a list of all the ones I use here, if you're interested:

http://thirtyfivemill.com/photo-equipment/

The Topaz collection is probably my most used.
 
WingTsun said:
Morning Nick! Happy Easter! I sometimes select small areas and using a Topaz plugin I use the Graduated ND filter which seems to often work in these kind of situations.
Click to expand...

Ah, a local adjustment in PP. I thought you were referring to putting a physical ND filter on the camera lens. :)

WingTsun said:
It's probably not the correct way to do it
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"Correct"???? What's that?

WingTsun said:
but it often works for me.
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That would be a good enough definition of "correct" for me I think. :)

WingTsun said:
In PS Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Colour. I normally will use those but they don't always get it right, in which case I'll either discard their correction of reduce it's percentage of opacity. I don't use LR so not sure what controls you have in there?
Click to expand...

At the moment I'm doing a video about controlling flash highlights and you might find the Lightroom part of it interesting. It's not about all of Lightroom's controls, just several of them, but it might give a hint of how Lightroom goes about things and the sort of controls it provides.

WingTsun said:
I have quite a few different softwares and plugins that I use together with PS. There's a list of all the ones I use here, if you're interested:

http://thirtyfivemill.com/photo-equipment/

The Topaz collection is probably my most used.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Thanks. I too have a fair amount of software but for image editing I mainly use Lightroom and DXO Optics Pro these days. (I just noticed that I haven't even reinstalled all my editing software since my last PC rebuild a while ago. Photomatix for example.)
 
GardenersHelper said:
At the moment I'm doing a video about controlling flash highlights and you might find the Lightroom part of it interesting. It's not about all of Lightroom's controls, just several of them, but it might give a hint of how Lightroom goes about things and the sort of controls it provides.

Interesting. Thanks. I too have a fair amount of software but for image editing I mainly use Lightroom and DXO Optics Pro these days. (I just noticed that I haven't even reinstalled all my editing software since my last PC rebuild a while ago. Photomatix for example.)
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I'll watch that with interest. I know LR and PS share some controls. My LR software is effectively Eridient Developer now though that has a lot to do with how it converts my X-T1's RAF files. I have done very little actual editing with it but am planning to have a play. I just finished re-installing all mine after doing a clean re-install of my MacBook.
 
WingTsun said:
I just finished re-installing all mine after doing a clean re-install of my MacBook.
Click to expand...

I took a different approach after my latest rebuild - only install software when I first want to use it. Shows how much HDR I do! (Actually, Lightroom can do HDR these days, although how good it is compared to Photomatix I don't know, haven't tested. HDR is a bit like stacking for me - tried it, it's fine and can give great results, just for some reason it turns out I don't actually feel like doing it much, even though I enjoy looking at other people's stacks and, well, sometimes, HDRs.)
 
GardenersHelper said:
I took a different approach after my latest rebuild - only install software when I first want to use it. Shows how much HDR I do! (Actually, Lightroom can do HDR these days, although how good it is compared to Photomatix I don't know, haven't tested. HDR is a bit like stacking for me - tried it, it's fine and can give great results, just for some reason it turns out I don't actually feel like doing it much, even though I enjoy looking at other people's stacks and, well, sometimes, HDRs.)
Click to expand...

I'm the same Nick. I did my re-install months ago but only just got round to using the last few programs, Photomatix included. I rarely tough HDR. The stacking I'm finding intriguing and am glad I bought Zerene. I find it fairly intuitive though I've only scraped the surface of what it can do.
 
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