Would you or your business like a high magnification focus stacked photo of a specific subject? e.g. Your tiny product?
I'd like to let readers know that I am happy to take on commission
work, please email me with details of exactly what you would like. My contact details should be available somewhere on the blog or if not there is a "contact me" link on my website at http://www.laurieknight.net/
I'm happy to take on any kind of macro/micro work up to 40x magnification with output up to 10 megapixels.
The cost will vary depending on factors including the ease/difficulty
of sourcing the appropriate subject and the time involved in
shooting/processing the image(s).
Saturday, 6 July 2013
Diffusion, when is it too much?
Diffusion is a tricky thing! I've been running some tests recently,
since I encountered trouble with specular reflections shooting a
Lacewing last week.
For a long time I've been using a kind of thin packing foam as diffusers. I originally got some wrapped round a new LCD monitor. This worked very nicely. Over a period of time I acquired various pieces of similar foam, and have been cutting all sorts of little flash diffusers from all these bits of foam, assuming they would all work as well...
Wrong!
After someone else pointed out that foam doesn't diffuse as much as you might think, I started looking more closely at the different pieces of foam I was using. The original stuff which worked well is white to look at, you can not see through it, and it has a fairly fine 'grain'. The piece of foam I was using on the Lacewing had a very different structure. The 'bubbles' in the foam are much larger, and more transparent. Hence it was not diffusing the light as much as I wanted.
The next experiment was some paper. Kleenex tissue was advised but I
was slightly fearful of small bits of fluff coming off of tissue paper onto the
specimen so my first tests were with a bit of standard printer/copier
paper.
This diffuses extremely well. In fact, I think it diffuses too much!
This second shot is a comparison shot with some foam as the diffuser but everything else exactly the same.
At full resolution there is slightly more detail visible in the hairy parts of the bee in the first shot (with the paper diffuser). However the consensus seems to be that the second shot looks better. The light is just too flat in the first image.
Of course some subjects require much more diffusion than others - for instance Beetles, particularly black Ground Beetles and Ladybirds. So I guess it's best to have a variety of diffusers available, and test diffusers on each subject before going through the whole stack!
One of these days I will get around to purchasing some proper diffusion material (e.g. from these people but I enjoy the hunt for junk that can be re-used!
For a long time I've been using a kind of thin packing foam as diffusers. I originally got some wrapped round a new LCD monitor. This worked very nicely. Over a period of time I acquired various pieces of similar foam, and have been cutting all sorts of little flash diffusers from all these bits of foam, assuming they would all work as well...
Wrong!
After someone else pointed out that foam doesn't diffuse as much as you might think, I started looking more closely at the different pieces of foam I was using. The original stuff which worked well is white to look at, you can not see through it, and it has a fairly fine 'grain'. The piece of foam I was using on the Lacewing had a very different structure. The 'bubbles' in the foam are much larger, and more transparent. Hence it was not diffusing the light as much as I wanted.
The next experiment was some paper. Kleenex tissue was advised but I
was slightly fearful of small bits of fluff coming off of tissue paper onto the
specimen so my first tests were with a bit of standard printer/copier
paper.This diffuses extremely well. In fact, I think it diffuses too much!
This second shot is a comparison shot with some foam as the diffuser but everything else exactly the same.
At full resolution there is slightly more detail visible in the hairy parts of the bee in the first shot (with the paper diffuser). However the consensus seems to be that the second shot looks better. The light is just too flat in the first image.
Of course some subjects require much more diffusion than others - for instance Beetles, particularly black Ground Beetles and Ladybirds. So I guess it's best to have a variety of diffusers available, and test diffusers on each subject before going through the whole stack!
One of these days I will get around to purchasing some proper diffusion material (e.g. from these people but I enjoy the hunt for junk that can be re-used!
Sunset Moth (Urania riphaeus)
I have to just put a quick post up about this moth. I purchased a specimen recently after seeing some amazing shots of the wing scales by a couple of posters at www.photomacrography.net
Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the Sunset moth
On the taxonomy I think I am using an old Latin name for this insect, I'm trying to get clarification on this, but this moth does have several synonyms, some of which are mentioned on the Wikipedia article above.
I recommend anyone into shooting bugs with an indoor macro studio should attempt to get hold of a specimen of this moth, it is quite remarkable when magnified. I've spent a good part of three evenings shooting this insect so far and I am not remotely finished with it yet! The iridescence of the scales makes it a challenging subject to light, shoot and stack, but I like a challenge..
See the the Butterfly/Moth gallery for my best shots of Urania riphaeus so far.
Here are a few of my favourites.
Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the Sunset moth
On the taxonomy I think I am using an old Latin name for this insect, I'm trying to get clarification on this, but this moth does have several synonyms, some of which are mentioned on the Wikipedia article above.
I recommend anyone into shooting bugs with an indoor macro studio should attempt to get hold of a specimen of this moth, it is quite remarkable when magnified. I've spent a good part of three evenings shooting this insect so far and I am not remotely finished with it yet! The iridescence of the scales makes it a challenging subject to light, shoot and stack, but I like a challenge..
See the the Butterfly/Moth gallery for my best shots of Urania riphaeus so far.
Here are a few of my favourites.
What to shoot in deep winter?
Okay, my first real blog post*, I'd better make it something worthwhile!
As primarily a bug/fungi shooter, what does one do in the depth of winter when there are virtually no fungi or bugs around?
Well recently I've started looking at lichen and moss, simply because there is nothing else out there!
Surprisingly both of these subjects can be quite interesting when viewed at high enough magnification...
Here's an example of a part of a Moss plant, the Peristome of the spore capsule (sporophyte)
Due to the size, this subject required focus stacking to get detail over any depth.
However while researching what the this moss was, I came across some wonderful moss galleries at the British Bryological Society website - page 1, page 2, page 3. These have inspired me to try to shoot some nice moss shots out in the field as well!
Edited to add; There are now some wild moss shots in the Mosses section of the Plants gallery
* There were a lot of test posts while I was putting the blog code together!
As primarily a bug/fungi shooter, what does one do in the depth of winter when there are virtually no fungi or bugs around?
Well recently I've started looking at lichen and moss, simply because there is nothing else out there!
Surprisingly both of these subjects can be quite interesting when viewed at high enough magnification...
Here's an example of a part of a Moss plant, the Peristome of the spore capsule (sporophyte)
Due to the size, this subject required focus stacking to get detail over any depth.
However while researching what the this moss was, I came across some wonderful moss galleries at the British Bryological Society website - page 1, page 2, page 3. These have inspired me to try to shoot some nice moss shots out in the field as well!
Edited to add; There are now some wild moss shots in the Mosses section of the Plants gallery
* There were a lot of test posts while I was putting the blog code together!
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