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Discussion Board -> Photography -> Saw this and thought of you...

Saw this and thought of you...

::Hottrockin
07/27/06 10:41 PM GMT
Marvelous Macro Beetle .

Credit: Geroge Dingwall / Invergordan, Scotland

>> > Nikon D200 + Sigma 150mm Macro
>> > 1/250 sec at f11
>> > 3 flash heads
>> > 13 frames stacked in Helicon Focus 4
>> > Finished in Photoshop CS2

I thought it was pretty cool and just wanted to share. Lotsa depth to it, but how?

George--"The beetle was dead, so I could do pretty much anything I wanted with it. I mounted it using a long thin needle inserted into the underside of the abdomen at such an angle that it would not be seen in the image. I placed the other end of the needle in a block of florists oasis. This gives a floating effect.

I then positioned the camera to achieve the desired pose. I used 3 flash heads. 1 to the left and slightly above, 1 to the right and about level. Both these had soft boxes fitted. The third flash head was directly overhead to boost illumination due to the very dark nature of the subject. I shot in RAW format to give me the greatest flexibility. I used the Mirror Up feature of my D200 to minimise camera shake.

I set up the camera with the closest point of the beetle in focus and the lens set to it closest point of focus. So the jaws parts are at 1 to 1 on the sensor.

I then took 13 individual images of the beetle, moving the point of focus back between each image until I had taken a shot with the farthest part of the body of the beetle being in focus. I decided to leave the back pair of legs out of focus.

I adjusted the focus manually by turning the focus ring on the lens.

This gives me 13 images each with a part of the beetle in focus.

I then use Helicon Focus V4 to stack these 13 images. The program builds a composite image from the "in focus" part of each image.

The result is an image with an almost unlimited depth of field. The jaws of the beetle are at life size on the sensor and the depth of field on this image is approximately 3/4 of an inch. In the raw image, the depth of field of the first image in the sequence starts at the tip of the jaws and does not extend all the way to back of the head section.

So by stacking the image you are achieving a depth of field not normally possible in a single exposure."
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&KEIFER
07/28/06 1:36 AM GMT
pretty as it is .. it's still a bug
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::MiLo_Anderson
07/28/06 4:50 AM GMT
With the focus why would he bother using that program. He obviously has a fair amount of light (three flashes); it is a dead bug so it doesn't move, so he can have a long shutter if he wants to. Why would he not just stop the lens down really low? wierd.
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No one wanted to pay to say something in my sig, so i will have to try and think of something creative now...
&trisbert
07/29/06 2:07 PM GMT
Probably because you lose sharpness if you stop the lens down to far. I think it’s called the diffraction limit.
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There are three colours, Ten digits and seven notes, its what we do with them that’s important. Ruth Ross
::MiLo_Anderson
07/30/06 6:02 PM GMT
hmm fair enough.
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No one wanted to pay to say something in my sig, so i will have to try and think of something creative now...

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