Category: Photo Study

Longhorn Beetle Macro Focus Stack

photog Photo Study, Photography , , , ,

So you take the Sony A7IV camera with the latest firmware update and you attach the Sony 90mm f/2.8 Macro G Lens and set the camera for focus bracketing using the small interval focus change and a hundred exposures with an f/8 aperture and ISO 100 quality and you get 100 files that look this bad:

Then you put the 100 files through a photo editor to get the exposure just right and process them in another piece of software that combines them into a focus stack and get this:

And if you crop that stack photo you’ll find quite a lot of detail:

Admittedly, this isn’t the loveliest insect photo on record but you have to admit it has a lot of detail.

The Middle Way

photog Current Events, Photo Study, photog's Corner, Photography ,

Lately my days have been filled with frustrating road blocks.  Things that should resolve themselves easily instead get bogged down in endless complication and delay.  Because of this I’ve been pretty stressed out.  So today while I was contemplating this it occurred to me that I shouldn’t allow days at a time to go by without any fun.  So, I’ve decided to try and add at least one fun thing into each of my days.

Sounds easy.  But what it means is that I have to first free my mind from the annoying things I’m trying to overcome and instead think up some small diversion that I can do in a short amount of time.  For instance, today I dragged out my camera, the Minolta 200mm f/4 macro lens and a bellows mount and started taking some macro shots of a dead preying mantis that I’ve had sitting on a house plant for a few months.

Now was this a terribly valuable use of my time?  No, not at all.  But it was fun and it got me thinking about what kind of a macro rig I’d like to set up.  The bellows device I was using had a bunch of problems associated with it.  It didn’t attach to my tripod very well and it was not rigid enough to avoid a lot of vibration.  But working around these issues was stimulating and fun.  And it made me think about something other than my problems.  It was a distraction and it lightened my mood brilliantly.

So, for the foreseeable future (meaning, until I get past my problems), I will be trying to add something fun to my days in order to stave off depression.  But in general, maybe I’ve hit on something worth pursuing.  I’ve never been someone who lived a balanced life.  My instincts have always been a sort of all or nothing strategy to most things in life.  Probably this was a matter of necessity caused by an almost pathological laziness that left me always forced into an eleventh hour, hail Mary effort to stave off disaster.

So maybe late in life I’ve discovered a miraculous unheard-of strategy; balance.

Tomorrow is a big family party.  But I think I’ll get up early and try to set up a focus bracket with the 90mm macro lens and some interesting macro subject.  I think I saw a dead spider down in the exercise area.  I think he might make an interesting target.  If not, I’ll find some still life thing; a feather or a coin or something.  And I’ll have some fun.

And that will leave Sunday to do some work.  I need to figure a few things out that have been stalled for a couple of weeks.  And then Monday and Tuesday are unavoidable hell.  I thought Tuesday would actually turn into a horrifying fiasco but blind luck stepped in and turned a horrifying nightmare into a merely tedious exercise in futility.  But just two days later and it will be Thanksgiving and that should be a wonderful way to recover.

Balance.  What did Siddhartha preach?  The Middle Way?

Rufus Panhandles a Meal

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, Photo Study, photog's Corner , , ,

A funny thing happened yesterday.  I was heading out to take some photos of a patch of bugle weed that is in bloom.  I had my camera backpack on and I was carrying a small tabletop sized tripod.  And as I walked out on the deck in front of the kitchen a baby fox came walking past me on the upper driveway.  When I closed the door, he noticed me and stopped and turned.  What a strange moment.  Now Camera Girl loves to see the baby foxes when they’re denning in the swamp so I wanted to get a photo for her so I desperately tried to get my camera out of the pack and in hand but the little fox trotted toward the shed and disappeared before I could free the camera.  I followed him behind the shed and looked down into the woods and pond but he was gone.

Camera Girl was out shopping.  When she got home, I told her about it and she was very excited.  She always enjoys when any foxes show up on the property but especially when pups (kits?) are around.  So, she was thrilled when a little while later it returned on the driveway.  And she went and got a bunch of chicken scraps and started feeding it.  I told her to be careful and keep her distance.  A fox walking around in the open in the daytime is a questionable occurrence.  They say that rabid animals tend to show up during the day so I cautioned her.  Well, before you know it, she’d fed the creature and then she put out a small bowl of milk and at that point I’m afraid maybe it’s moving in with us.

I went out with my camera and saw him ducking in and out of a space under the shed.  I got a few not-so-great photos and watched him for a while.  He was young and he didn’t look that strong.  I tried to imagine how a kit that young would be on its own.  I wondered if the den was under the shed but I never saw any sign of the parents or den-mates.  Could his parents have been killed?  It didn’t seem likely.  Was he sickly and abandoned?  Maybe.  After a while he didn’t reappear so I went in.  Camera Girl left out more food and milk.  But by nightfall it was still there.

Last night I heard about how exciting it was that the little fox was about.  I warned her that it wasn’t so good having it around.  I told her it was a health hazard for the dogs to have a wild canid around spreading various diseases they could catch.  She yes-yessed me but I could tell she was hoping it would stick around.  I was preparing myself for the headaches this new “pet” would cause me.  Oh well.

But today Rufus was nowhere to be found.  Even a fresh portion of food and milk wasn’t enough to lure him back.  Is he gone for good?  Maybe.  Camera Girl is disappointed but I can tell she still has hopes.

To be continued.

Make Way for the Expedition!

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, Photo Study, photog's Corner, Photography , ,
Voigtlander 10mm e-mount trees in vertical

Camera Girl is an excellent wife.  She understands the nuances and challenges of being married to a profoundly disorganized man.  And what she has done is become my enabler.  She knows how lazy and easily distracted I can be so she goes out of her way to find things in the real world that can help me in my stated goals.

For instance, I’ve been complaining about needing a photography trip to get a bunch of new pictures.  So, she took it upon herself to research day trips to photogenic locations.  Car shows, museums, stuff like that.  Well, she asked me if I want to go to a botanical garden on Friday.  Apparently, the weather is going to cooperate and she was able to get discount passes from one of her library friends (she loves discounts passionately).

“Perfect!” I said.  And so tomorrow morning I will assemble my gear and she will act as my native bearer or sherpa guide.  With her carrying all the weight, my inner vision will be free to unlock the mystical dimensions of the secrets of nature.  Like a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci (only without all the gayness) I will frame the photographs that will capture truth, beauty and small insects everywhere I go.

Like Frank Buck and Ali “bringing ‘em back alive” or Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay conquering Everest, we shall conquer new frontiers of arboreal greatness together.  I with my Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens and A7IV camera and Camera Girl with her 83-pound backpack with forehead strap to take some of the weight off of her shoulders.  To some this may sound excessive.  On the contrary, I’m leaving behind the laptop, larger tripod and the flash gear.  Everything I packed is critical; the portable generator, my yoga mat and the collapsible hammock for my 1:30 pm siesta.  After all we’re not barbarians, are we?  And she knows that the roll of a good producer is to, “keep the talent happy.”  After all, without my perfect composure and comfort the whole thing will be for naught.  Remember, art is the hardest thing in the world.  We must be perfectly in tune with the astral plane or it will collapse like a deck of cards or some other analogy.

As the kids would say, “I’m stoked.”  And I predict the most amazing results from this expedition.  I do intend to bring along some other lenses.  The 10mm Voigtlander should be useful for capturing some of the vertical shots of the trees and I’m considering bringing the Sony 200-600mm zoom for any shots of birds up in the higher branches.  And I guess I’ll bring the Sony 35mm f\1.4 for some landscape shots.  I’m not sure if I’ll bring the new 135mm f\1.8.  It’s kind of an in between lens.    Not really long enough for wildlife but too tight for landscape.  But it has great bokeh for backgrounds so I probably will bring it.  Ah, decisions, decisions.

So, I’ll be away for a chunk of the day.  The site will be quiet but I’ll be home in time to catch up with everything.  “Ali!  Where is my elephant gun you lazy heathen!”

First Annual Orio’s Awards

photog Current Events, OCF, Photo Study, Photography ,

Year end award ceremonies are usually pretentious and subjective.  This leaves the viewers angry and jaded.  Not to be outdone by Hollywood and the mainstream media I am announcing and presenting this inaugural edition of the Orio’s.  Named for the website and embodying the timeless desire of all photographers to fill up space on his blog I am stepping forward and picking the five best photos from the last three hundred and sixty five “photo of the day” submissions.  I have absolutely no objective basis for my selection other than first impressions as I rapidly scanned through the shots from the last twelve months.  Well, here they are.

  1. Two Ducks in Freezing Water

This aptly titled work captures the essence of water fowl floating on a freezing pond.  I will say that Mrs.  Mallard seems to be giving Mr. Mallard the stink-eye for something that he is pretending he didn’t do.  There’s no way he gets away with it.

 

2. Come into my Parlor Said the Spider to the Fly

What is there to say about the visceral appeal of this stunning visual statement?  The drama of a lion bringing down a wildebeest on the Serengeti is (sorta) on display as arachnid faces off against the disgusting metallic sheen of the bottle fly.  Is there really any winner here?

 

3. The Wheel of Time

This fossilized ammonite shell reminds me that most of my life has been spent going around in circles.  Is it really about the journey if you end up in the same place you start from?  Oh well.

 

4.  Oh My Stars

I can’t think of any snarky wise cracks for this one.  I just like the way it looks.

 

5.  Make a Wish

Regular readers probably know that I kind of like the way that milkweed seed pods look after they explode.  Nuff said.

 

So that’s it.  A whole year will elapse before we find ourselves here again to rate and praise the best of the best of the best!  Well, save up your excitement and the seconds will pass like seconds.  Thank you for your attention and hopefully all comments should be equally light-hearted.

Calibrating a Focus Bracket with the Sony 90mm Macro Lens on the A7 IV

photog Camera Reviews, Photo Study, Photography, Photography Reviews , , , ,

TomD brought up a lot of good points about the limitations and vagaries of focus stacking so I tried to get a better handle on the mechanics of the settings used.

And when in need of a handy dandy close up subject I hauled out my extremely dead tarantula spider.  He has the benefit of being a rather large macro subject.  So I arranged the camera on a tripod at the minimum focal distance and set the bracket spacing to 4 out of 10 and selected 125 frames.  After the end I measured the length of the spider that was in focus in the bracket.  It came to about 2.5 inches.  Now this is a ballpark because there was an angle to the camera.  but this gives a decent idea of how many shots are needed to cover a depth of field.

Here is the first bracket frame

Here’s the last (125th) frame

Here is the stacked composite

And finally here is a photo taken from the same distance at a very small aperture (f\18) as a comparison.

Now this stack took 50 minutes to crank out on my laptop.  Is it worth the time and effort?  I guess that’s a personal choice.  But I’m kind of enjoying playing around with a new technique.  And that’s probably the nerd in me showing through.

 

Update:

TomD commented:

As a lifelong certified arachnophobe, 2.5” inches is entirely too big (by at least an order of magnitude) for a live spider to be.

Thanks for the experiment! Enlightening!

Even with 4 steps/per frame x 125 frames, or 500 steps, it still didn’t get the abdomen. So 500 steps only covered around 1.75”?

That’s extremely unintuitive and approaching unusable.

As I said in an earlier post, the software that I played with at the camera club would have the entire object with 8-10 exposures.

Maybe that’s more a function of the lens than the software. I’ve done a lot of macro work using several lenses and noticed that macro lenses with a very close focus all have a razor thin usable depth of field. I wonder what would happen if you took a good prime lens in the 85+mm range, moved it back and tried the same experiment at something like f8?

You would have to crop in to get the same image size but I’ve noticed that ou A7IV’s can be cropped quite a ways and still have great IQ’s (image quality).

Using the setup specs of your experiment, I’d say that the upper dof limit is in the inch range.

photog replied:

Tom, I’m going to play around with this function.  I want to see what I can do with it.  It seems like an interesting tool that I might find some good applications for.  But I can see that it might not have any compelling uses for most people.

Guest Contributor – TomD – 17NOV2024 – Photo – Focus Stacking Issues

photog Guest Contributors, Photo Study, Photography, TomD , ,

Tom | Flickr

TomD

Yesterday, I experimented some and found what I consider the Achilles heel of the method. This isn’t a factor for inanimate objects but outdoor nature photography becomes difficult to say the least. I was trying to shoot a clump of red berries in a bush and then a flower (this is Florida)> There was no detectable wind the the 1/4 mph (or whatever) was just enough to move the subject 1/8” to 1/16”, just barely. That would have had little to no effect in regular photography but it totally ruled out stacked images for any purpose. That + the sheer length of time the subject has to remain motionless is hard in the wild. For my initial experiments, I was doing just 25 images with a 2 sec interval. That’s a life time in some circumstances but a bunch of articles recommended 100!

This is different from the focus stacking that i learned when I was in a camera club about 15 years ago. Then the shooting formula was still on a tripod, you would focus the camera on the nearest point you wanted, then the furthest and then input the number of steps that you want. Typically, it was along the line of 5 to 10 intervals, max.

The major downside was that the camera had to be tethered to and controlled by a computer. And the software was expensive.

At any rate, it looks as if this latest technique is limited to purely static subjects. But so to is HDR but to a much lessor extent. The most images you need in HDR is 5 and my camera will whip those out in less than a second. So you have some latitude.

Sony A7 IV Focus Bracketing Test – 16NOV2024

photog Camera Reviews, Photo Study, Photography, Photography Reviews , , ,

Welcome to the further adventures of me playing around with the newly added focus bracketing function on my Sony A7IV camera.  Although I was using the Sony 90mm macro lens this isn’t a macro bracket.  I set up a few small statues in a location that caught the late afternoon light and ran a hundred shots with a medium setting on the focus change.  I’ve attached the first file (1) and the last file (100) followed by the merged product.

(1)

 

(100)

 

merged product

 

Now this isn’t all that an exciting test.  Afterwards I though I probably should have included a shot at a very small aperture like F8 or F16 as a comparison of what can be done the old fashioned way without the software magic.  But I didn’t think of that before.

Anyway, just another test as I play around with my fun new toy.

Focus Bracketing Inside the Sony A7 IV – Part 1

photog Camera Reviews, Current Events, OCF, Photo Study, Photography, Photography Reviews , , , , ,

Well, I couldn’t resist. I went on Sony’s website and found the pages with the firmware update (4.00). But upon reading the instructions I found out that since my firmware was at version 1.01, I had to first update my camera to version 1.05 before updating to version 4.00. The warning said that if I went straight to 4.00 it would cause an error and then I wouldn’t be able to fix the problem. Well, the camera gods are a jealous bunch and defying them is very unwise so along with many a grumble and even a few mumbles I went through the procedure twice.
1.01 to 1.05
1.05 to 4.00
And what do you know? It really worked. The drive menu had new options that included focus bracketing. After following the instructions from a YouTube video, I was able to quickly and easily run a quick bracket on a preserved tarantula spider specimen and send it through my focus stacking program (Affinity Photo) and, voila, edge to edge sharpness.

Now this was just a quick test. I had a kid’s party starting and barely got the files stacked before I had to go referee grandkids for Camera Girl. But it was definitely a proof of concept and I can see how this will work for even some field shots. Definitely usable for macro shots of plants like mushrooms and such and even for resting or sedate creatures like resting dragonflies and such. Of course, butterflies are out of the question. But a little testing is bound to bring up other applications.
So, all in all, this is an amazing surprise from Sony. Kudos to them for hearing my cries in the wilderness. Bravo, gentlemen, bravo.