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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
12/16/2011 11:41:56 AM
First, I trained the wasp to keep quite still and then I took about 30 shots each at a different focal distance. These were then melded together using Zerene software. The result was tidied-up using Photoshop. I use a focus-stacking rig based on old travelling microscope.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
12/16/2011 11:40:10 AM
First, I trained the wasp to keep quite still and then I took about 30 shots each at a different focal distance. These were then melded together using Zerene software. The result was tidied-up using Photoshop. I use a focus-stacking rig based on old travelling microscope.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
12/8/2011 12:39:35 AM
If you can do it, I suggest that you Photoshop in a bicycle propped up outside the front of the building, then it tells a story. As it is it's a lovely photo but it lacks a focus.
While doing it, it might help to take out the chevron signs.
Your image has HUGE potential.
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| Photo By: Ambronese George
(K:30)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
8/14/2011 5:21:05 PM
Actually Mark, looking at this again from a distance of 4 years, I think your change was an improvement. Ho-hum!
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
8/14/2011 5:08:14 PM
This guy needs the kiss of life.
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| Photo By: ERNIE BUCHANAN
(K:18741)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
5/20/2011 10:57:47 PM
OK, Tibor, I will let you into my little secret. A photo montage of the equipment will be my next upload.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
5/13/2011 1:29:29 AM
Ah, now I understand. I will delete it from the alternative process. Focus stacking seemed to qualify it for that. My mistake. Many thanks for pointing this out and your further kind comments. Regards.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
5/12/2011 11:32:39 AM
In the baove comment please read "Macro" in place of "microscope. Sorry Nikon, doing you down there.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
5/12/2011 11:30:08 AM
What an interesting comment. What do you mean by "digital"? Is this a plus or a minus comment?
Yes, a digital camera was used but there has not been any post-processing other than to blend the layers together. What you see is exactly what came out of the camera. No changes to saturation, contrast, sharpening, levels, curves or anything like that.
No film equipment could ever achieve an image like this, so perhaps your perceived digitalness is a function of the surprising depth of field at this magnification combined with the excellent sharpness from a good quality microscope lens.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/27/2011 11:40:58 PM
ANSWER TO THE QUIZ: I worked out there are at least 13 couples in this image.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/27/2011 12:43:37 PM
Check out the two following focus stacking programs. I am not sure which, if either, works for Mac.
Helicon Focus
Zerene
They both have free trial periods, there are others that you can find by visiting the Photomacrography web site:
http://www.photomacrography.net/
Get ready to be knocked out by the home page image!
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Photo By: Chris CC
(K:1510)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/27/2011 12:20:32 AM
A nice shot, well composed but this is faint praise for what could have been wonderful.
This sort of image demands two essentials:
(1) A prime lens - zoom leses are always a compromise which shows up in fine work like this.
(2) An aperture no smaller than f8, else difraction effects set in. I suspect you were working around the f16 mark.
Combining the two really means a 50mm macro lens at f5.6. or a 100mm macro lens at f8. To recover the depth of field a 4 or 5 frame merge would see it become needle sharp with even the wavy, jagged nature of the parachure fronds becoming apparent. I am assuming that this was a table-top shot. If you took it in the field scrub all my above comments and congratulate yourself on a great shot - but next time it might pay you to take it home and do it on the table.
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| Photo By: Chris CC
(K:1510)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/26/2011 2:53:24 AM
Thank you for your kind comment. I used Zerene for this image. Others prefer Helicon Focus.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/1/2008 11:58:49 PM
Peta, Have you looked at Ardalan's other images? He is just bursting with good ideas. Regards. Martin.
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| Photo By: Ardalan Haddad
(K:15567)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/1/2008 11:33:45 PM
Peta, I think the blacks are just about spot on, the the bridge support detail is just about visible, not blocked out. Any darker and they would be gone. Hopefully your screen shows this as well, if not you might need to calibrate it.
Regards.
Martin.
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| Photo By: Ardalan Haddad
(K:15567)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/1/2008 11:30:35 PM
It just works so well! I especially enjoyed the "about", nice to understand what one is looking at.
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| Photo By: Ardalan Haddad
(K:15567)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/1/2008 11:28:19 PM
A really good idea and execution. I love the contrast between the savage, hard, monochromatic exterior and the soft interior. I feel that it would be a really comfy place to live, if I were a bug!
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| Photo By: zenir suko
(K:2408)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/1/2008 11:23:31 PM
Lovely idea and the composition is spot on, but .... it's a bit fierce. The effect is of a furnace rather than a flower.
Perhaps less contrast and hold back on the exposure by 0.7EV and it should come together nicely.
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| Photo By: Greg Sava
(K:11999)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/1/2008 6:11:59 PM
I was really mean, I pinched your idea but gave you the credit.
Best regards.
Martin
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
3/27/2008 7:08:32 PM
Mohamed,
I tried cropping before I uploaded it. I found that the crop as presented gave the best sense of desolation and cold.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
11/5/2007 11:53:09 AM
Dan, I use Photoshop CS2 which has an HDR (High Dynamic Range) utility built-in which I imaging is just like Photomatix. However, by using layers and changing their relative opacities it is possible to position the perceived lighting source at any point around the subject. Try it, take two images of a subject one lit from above left and the other above right and open them as two layers and then slowly reduce the opacity of the upper layer. Its just like a movie with the light being shifted across the subject. Extremely useful and when combined with two more, front and back, the range is almost limitless. It is also very useful for eliminating blown highlights and blocked shadows (see example attached).
HDR on the other hand seems merely allows a high dynamic range without the option of fine tuning the effective lighting positions.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
11/4/2007 11:31:40 PM
A superb image. Just needs a tiny catch-light in the eye to give the bird life, at about "11 o'clock" should do the trick.
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| Photo By: jack reid
(K:431)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
11/3/2007 4:27:25 PM
Dan, Thanks for your comments. I use multple lighting shots (front, left, right and rear) and blend them using Photoshop layers. I use a mini tripod (the type with bendy legs) to hold the camera absolutely steady while I take the 4 shots using a slave flash (Metz 28 CS-2 Digital with wide-angle adaptor in place).
Using the same set-up it should be possible to freeze insectrs in flight as the Metz fires down to an incredible 1/45,000 of a second.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
11/1/2007 10:34:56 AM
Hi Sally, Been a few months since we last "spoke". See you haven't lost your touch meanwhile. This is a great image.
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| Photo By: Sally Morgan
(K:9219)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
10/31/2007 7:14:48 PM
Doyle, Thanks hugely for the input, I will check the names in my books which list some 20,000 species. It MUST be there somewhere but it's always a case of having an idea before searching.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
10/14/2007 11:51:17 PM
Mark, I appreciate your comments. However, the A620 is a fine tool. The apparent under-exposure is a deliberate PS manipulation for mood. This is well-exposed, finely focused colour photo in its original form. In fact I am so happy with the A620 that I have just bought the A640 to gain a slightly better shadow chroma result and a few extra pixels to play with!
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
10/14/2007 5:49:42 PM
Mark, I like your addition of the sky but I think you have missed the point of the photo, it was heavy mist and the sky is not visible at all instead there are sheets of rain. I felt the idea of the vessel having sailed out of the fog made it all work well. Indeed I have since removed the entire background and feel that it is even better. Your comment has, however, made me wonder if I am on entirely the wrong track.
Like you, I also have a library of skies and so will look at the various possibilities to see what can be done, yours is certainly interesting but to my eye is not an overall improvement. More to follow .....
Thanks for the interest and constructive critisism, always welcomed.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
5/1/2007 1:43:41 AM
Please tell us about it !
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| Photo By: Ramy Hammad
(K:217)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
4/19/2007 11:20:04 AM
Adrienne,
Thank you for your kind comments. It's always a trade-off, depth of field against speed against chroma noise. Her wings are still beating, although she is begining to fold them having made contact with the wood. Even at 1/500th they are still too quick to freeze. Using flash is not an option with bees and wasps as the body hairs end up looking like polished fuse-wire due to their very high reflectivity.
At f8 (the best this little camera can achieve) the wings would still have been out of focus as the depth of field is just 3.4mm at this magnification (about 3:1 equiv).
Having said all that, yes, I agree - frozen wings in sharp focus would have been ideal but this is not realistically achieveable outside of a dedicated studio set-up. I reckon to achieve the ideal would require 1/2,500th, f64 and a very co-operative insect - none of which is available to me.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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Critique By:
Martin Halley (K:580)
3/12/2007 10:10:37 AM
No reflexes at all, Sally. Happily the camera will take over 300 continuous shots with flash before the SD card is full. So it's just a case of setting it all up and running the drips while the camera snaps away. Of course, almost all are rubbish but the remainder can be magical. I think I took about 1,500 shots in all and have kept about 35.
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| Photo By: Martin Halley
(K:580)
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