Tuesday, January 26, 2010

...twentysix/threehundredsixtyfive...

Watched NOVA tonight. It was a bout the migration and life cycle of monarchs.  Amazing little buggers!

I was inspired and just happen to have a couple giant moth specimens stashed away for creative purposes.  Still loving the automatic macro tubes!   I attempted a focus stack with the antennae.  This is when you take multiple macro shots at different focal points or "planes" and stack them in Photoshop to get a more focused image.  Macro shots have an inherently narrow focal range which is why this is such a cool technique.  The result was sub-par not to mention the exp is off a bit but it was my first try at something new and I now know exactly what I did wrong.  Next time I need to make smaller focus adjustments with more exposures.  At any rate I'll post the failed experiment for visualization, you can plainly see the areas out of focus where I stacked the "focal planes".


















However, I was very pleased with this super-macro image.  I utilized "liveview" to  zoom in and manually focus as sharp as possible on those little blue hairs.  I stopped down to f/9 to increase the sharpness and the very narrow focal range.  My 18-105mm lens (@ 50mm) with the extension tubes attached was so close it was nearly touching the moth's wing.  I had my trusty Maglite laying on the table hitting the wing nearly perpendicular to the lens creating those magical little flares.




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