GardenersHelper
In Memoriam
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- Nick
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These are from our garden two weeks ago, using a Panasonic G9 and Olympus 60mm macro. The photos and videos were captured hand-held. For each scene, before starting the captures I set the camera white balance from the grey panel of a ColorChecker Passport. During processing I used the "As Shot" white balance.
It was a bright, sunny day. I have often seen comments advising against photographing flowers in bright conditions. I actually prefer to photograph flowers with direct sunshine falling on them, or falling on some or all of the background; I like the effects of light and shadow that arise, varying with angle of attack and varying in time, sometimes from moment to moment when the subjects are moving in a breeze or the foliage through which sunlight is falling is moving in a breeze. My favourite is late afternoon low sun, but for these it was mid afternoon.
Judging the exposure is more difficult in sunny conditions, with it being rather easy to clip individual channels (especially the red channel), resulting in colours being distorted even if nothing is blown to white. This issue has been significantly alleviated by a recent firmware update to the G9 which included a highlight protection exposure mode. This is proving to be very effective for my sunny day flower imaging. I have found that when using it I can for most scenes use a fixed positive exposure compensation. This contrasts with the negative exposure compensation that I was previously using which had to be adjusted from scene to scene and could vary considerably. The fixed compensation simplifies and speeds the acquisition process.
Processing sunny day flower images can also be difficult, in terms of both highlight management and shadow raising. Having Silkypix in the workflow helps a lot with colour retention during highlight management. Using DeNoise AI towards the end of the workflow (having used DXO's PRIME noise reduction at the start of the workflow) provided good control of the side effects of deep shadow raising.
The first and last of these images were focus stacked from 6K videos using Helicon Focus. In both cases two focus stacks using different stacking methods were merged, and the last merged focus stack was also retouched from one of the source images. The retouched images were imported into Lightroom for cropping and tonality adjustments. Both had a round trip from Lightroom to Photoshop and back again for edge stretching.
The other six images were derived from single-image raw captures selected from aperture bracket sets. The selected images were processed using presets in PhotoLab and then Silkypix, and then imported into Lightroom for cropping and tonality adjustments. Images #4 and #5 had a round trip from Lightroom to Photoshop and back again for edge compression and edge stretching respectively.
All the images had a round trip from Lightroom to DeNoise AI and back again for background smoothing and mild sharpening, and were exported from Lightroom to 1300 pixel high JPEGs.
There are 1300 pixel tall versions of these images and another 16 images from the session in this album at Flickr.
#1
1629 02 26_03_2020 P1158556_0003 62f B24,4+innerC4-Edit-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#2
1629 05 26_03_2020 P1158707_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#3
1629 06 26_03_2020 P1158753_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#4
1629 14 26_03_2020 P1158997_PLab3 SP9-Edit-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#5
1629 16 26_03_2020 P1159050_PLab3 SP9-Edit-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#6
1629 20 26_03_2020 P1159160_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#7
1629 21 26_03_2020 P1159180_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#8
1629 22 26_03_2020 P1159295_0006 49f B24,4+innerC4+i-Edit-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
It was a bright, sunny day. I have often seen comments advising against photographing flowers in bright conditions. I actually prefer to photograph flowers with direct sunshine falling on them, or falling on some or all of the background; I like the effects of light and shadow that arise, varying with angle of attack and varying in time, sometimes from moment to moment when the subjects are moving in a breeze or the foliage through which sunlight is falling is moving in a breeze. My favourite is late afternoon low sun, but for these it was mid afternoon.
Judging the exposure is more difficult in sunny conditions, with it being rather easy to clip individual channels (especially the red channel), resulting in colours being distorted even if nothing is blown to white. This issue has been significantly alleviated by a recent firmware update to the G9 which included a highlight protection exposure mode. This is proving to be very effective for my sunny day flower imaging. I have found that when using it I can for most scenes use a fixed positive exposure compensation. This contrasts with the negative exposure compensation that I was previously using which had to be adjusted from scene to scene and could vary considerably. The fixed compensation simplifies and speeds the acquisition process.
Processing sunny day flower images can also be difficult, in terms of both highlight management and shadow raising. Having Silkypix in the workflow helps a lot with colour retention during highlight management. Using DeNoise AI towards the end of the workflow (having used DXO's PRIME noise reduction at the start of the workflow) provided good control of the side effects of deep shadow raising.
The first and last of these images were focus stacked from 6K videos using Helicon Focus. In both cases two focus stacks using different stacking methods were merged, and the last merged focus stack was also retouched from one of the source images. The retouched images were imported into Lightroom for cropping and tonality adjustments. Both had a round trip from Lightroom to Photoshop and back again for edge stretching.
The other six images were derived from single-image raw captures selected from aperture bracket sets. The selected images were processed using presets in PhotoLab and then Silkypix, and then imported into Lightroom for cropping and tonality adjustments. Images #4 and #5 had a round trip from Lightroom to Photoshop and back again for edge compression and edge stretching respectively.
All the images had a round trip from Lightroom to DeNoise AI and back again for background smoothing and mild sharpening, and were exported from Lightroom to 1300 pixel high JPEGs.
There are 1300 pixel tall versions of these images and another 16 images from the session in this album at Flickr.
#1
1629 02 26_03_2020 P1158556_0003 62f B24,4+innerC4-Edit-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#2
1629 05 26_03_2020 P1158707_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#3
1629 06 26_03_2020 P1158753_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#4
1629 14 26_03_2020 P1158997_PLab3 SP9-Edit-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#5
1629 16 26_03_2020 P1159050_PLab3 SP9-Edit-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#6
1629 20 26_03_2020 P1159160_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#7
1629 21 26_03_2020 P1159180_PLab3 SP9-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
#8
1629 22 26_03_2020 P1159295_0006 49f B24,4+innerC4+i-Edit-Edit LR 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
