Anthers and stigma of a Christmas Cactus flower

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

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rjlittlefield
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Anthers and stigma of a Christmas Cactus flower

Post by rjlittlefield »

Image

This is shot using an 18-55 mm kit lens on a Canon T1i, reversed on a short extension with aperture set at f/8 using the trick of unmounting the lens with DOF preview pressed. It's actually a short stack, 5 frames, handheld, using the camera's built-in flash diffused through a piece of Kleenex tissue held in the same hand that was cradling the lens. It's a very inexpensive and low-tech approach.

--Rik

Cyclops
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Post by Cyclops »

Very nice Rik- I have one of these in this colour- in fact it was a shot of a bud that you chose as photo of the month a while ago!

Great technique!
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

Harold Gough
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Post by Harold Gough »

Lovely! There is a lot of texture, and occasionally colour, in many cactus stigmas.

Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Thanks for the kudos! The "how to" is now illustrated over in Technical Discussions, HERE, near the bottom of the first post.

--Rik

Matthias
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Post by Matthias »

This is a very good result considering the low-tech approach and handheld technique.

madmacro
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Wow

Post by madmacro »

Your picture is very sharp though it's hand held, I don't think I can do that,
Even the fine fibre on the stigma is visible. Thank for sharing Rik..

Cyclops
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Re: Wow

Post by Cyclops »

madmacro wrote:Your picture is very sharp though it's hand held, I don't think I can do that,
Even the fine fibre on the stigma is visible. Thank for sharing Rik..
You can with a flashgun when the camera is on manual and using a small aperture. The exposure is made by the flash alone. With a very short burst between 1/1000 and 1/20,000 of a second all motion is rendered invisible! Most of my flash-based macros are now handheld.
Canon 5D and 30D | Canon IXUS 265HS | Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro | EF 75-300 f4.5-5.6 USM III | EF 50 f1.8 II | Slik 88 tripod | Apex Practicioner monocular microscope

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