@tman,
@Norkie,
@charlychuckchuck,
@andythilo,
@Dael_Pix,
@Barney1,
@alfbranch,
@Tintin124,
@ChrisWXM,
@plamen_gb,
@ChrisA,
@zooankski, thank you all for the very positive and encouraging comments.
As ever awesome Nick #1 looks like it was overexposed and been somewhat recovered but the others are on the money
Thanks Bryn. I had a look at this and it turned out not quite as I expected. It appears that I didn't do anything special by way of recovery for this image. Apart from cropping, it had the same processing (using DXO and Silkypix presets) as most of the other images. Curious as to what was going on, I explored a bit.
On loading the image ACR shows these highlight warnings. Notice the very long tail at the top of the histogram and the very small red channel blip at the very top.
GA wasp ACR Highlight warnings as loaded by
gardenersassistant, on Flickr
With the Highlights pulled right down the blip at the top end has gone from the histogram but there are still some Highlight warnings.
GA wasp ACR Highlight warnings, full highlight reduction by
gardenersassistant, on Flickr
In addition to pulling the Highlights right down, I had to reduce the Exposure by a third of a stop to get rid of the Highlight warnings. This left a gap at the top of the histogram and made the whole image look slightly dark to my eye.
GA wasp ACR Highlight warnings, full highlight and -0.35 stop exposure reduction by
gardenersassistant, on Flickr
Silkypix shows similar (slightly smaller area) Highlight warnings on loading the image. Helicon Filter and Lightroom didn't show any Highlight warnings on loading the image. It isn't surprising that different applications use different criteria for over-exposure, but I was surprised that Lightroom and ACR gave such different indications. In admittedly very limited testing I have found that setting the ACR sliders at the same amounts as the same sliders in Lightroom gives (as far as I can see) the same results, which suggests that they are using the same engine for making modifications to the image. It seems though that the rendering component is different when it comes to Highlight warnings.
Amazing DOF for a Raynox.
There is of course not much DOF whatever kit we use for close-up/macro, but I don't find DOF a particular issue with achromats like the Raynox. You probably know what follows, but for those who don't ...
As I understand it, for a given sensor size DOF depends on the effective aperture and the framing of the subject (magnification).
Macro lenses, extension tubes, teleconverters and reversed lenses decrease the effective aperture as magnification increases, whilst close-up lenses don't. That means that that if I put a close-up lens on a camera lens that goes down to f/32 then f/32 is the minimum effective aperture that I can use. On the other hand if I use a macro lens and/or extension tubes, teleconverters or reverse a lens I can get to a smaller effective aperture, and therefore more DOF. For example, with an MPE-65, using its minimum aperture of f/16 at it maximum magnification of 5:1 gives an effective aperture of f/96. Since DOF doubles with each 2 stops reduction in aperture this effective aperture of f/96 give four times the DOF of f/16. [CORRECTION: f/96 gives four times the DOF of f/22, and 5.6 times the DOF of f/16.] However, the loss of sharpness/detail from diffraction is so great that it is probably not worth going there.
In fact I always use close-up lenses on camera zoom lenses and never (apart from experiments) use macro lenses, extension tubes, teleconverters or reversed lenses. I generally use an aperture of around f/22 to f/32. There is considerable softening/loss of detail from diffraction but I find that with suitable post processing the sharpness/detail can be ok for viewing at 1300 pixels high on screen, which is the size I work to with my images.
Actually, I use an
equivalent aperture of around f/22 to f/32. I can only get down to f/8 with my FZ200, which I generally use for this sort of shot, but because of its much smaller sensor size f/8 on the FZ200 gives the same DOF as f/28 with the 70D and f/22 with the G5.
no idea how you made it stand in one place for that long though!
They sometimes stayed still for several seconds. I had to be fairly quick to frame and focus (using autofocus, which I almost always use for close-ups), but it wasn't silly quick. A lot of the time I was too slow, but it worked often enough not to be dispiriting.
be good of got one head on.
This sort of thing? (More in
this thread and
this thread if you are interested.)
0765 01 2015_08_11 P1020610 LR by
gardenersassistant, on Flickr
0764 03a 2015_08_11 IMG_0137 LR by
gardenersassistant, on Flickr
Shame i had to destroy a nest in my eaves last night but the little devils were making so much noise and my son got stung the day before.
That is a shame, but I know what it is like. We had a nest in our loft last year.
