Black Jumping Spider
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Black Jumping Spider
Canon 10D
50mm Fujinon lens reversed on extention tubes
109 images at .005 inch increments
tent lighting
Combine ZM , Photoshop
I haven't been looking at the forum for a while and didn't know so many excellent spider images were up. Especially Charles's crab spider. But I just finished this so here we go again.
Walt
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Lookin' good, Walt!
109 images at 0.005" does seem like a bit of overkill for this subject, but that could just be because I don't know how big the subject is. I did one that looks superficially similar in 46 images at 0.015", here. Yours may be quite a bit smaller, in which case your numbers may be just perfect.
I'll risk a reminder that if shooting or processing time is an issue, it's often worth running some setup experiments to see how exactly what you can get away with. When I'm in a new situation -- either subject size or lens -- what I do is to experiment with aperture until I figure out how far I can stop down and still get the resolution I want, then I take a short sequence with fine focus steps to figure out how far I can step and still get everything sharp in at least one frame. After I know those two things, then I figure out how long the real sequence is going to be. If it's tolerably short, I shoot it; if it's intolerably long, I go back and rethink whether to stop down farther (thus losing resolution), or perhaps lop off some focus range.
Switching subjects, which CombineZM options did you use on this?
--Rik
109 images at 0.005" does seem like a bit of overkill for this subject, but that could just be because I don't know how big the subject is. I did one that looks superficially similar in 46 images at 0.015", here. Yours may be quite a bit smaller, in which case your numbers may be just perfect.
I'll risk a reminder that if shooting or processing time is an issue, it's often worth running some setup experiments to see how exactly what you can get away with. When I'm in a new situation -- either subject size or lens -- what I do is to experiment with aperture until I figure out how far I can stop down and still get the resolution I want, then I take a short sequence with fine focus steps to figure out how far I can step and still get everything sharp in at least one frame. After I know those two things, then I figure out how long the real sequence is going to be. If it's tolerably short, I shoot it; if it's intolerably long, I go back and rethink whether to stop down farther (thus losing resolution), or perhaps lop off some focus range.
Switching subjects, which CombineZM options did you use on this?
--Rik
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- Posts: 693
- Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:42 pm
- Location: South Beloit, Ill
Thanks Ken and Rik. You may well be right that this is overkill but I wanted to stay on familiar ground. My first good image with this lens was at this increment but at f/8. This image was at f/3.5 so I felt the shallower depth of field warranted it. Besides, I have found that shooting at wider F/ratio settings actually lowers the number of exposures needed because there is a cleaner start and stop zone.
The large number of exposures was due to the length of the subject. This jumper is of the larger variety, maybe ½ inch diameter rear toe to front toe. Regarding Combine ZM, I used the Do Stack macro. I did a second closer shot of the same subject and did the processing in both “Do stack” and the newest macro weighted average correction. The later produced an unacceptable image that I can show a comparison on in your technical section when I have time.
Walt
The large number of exposures was due to the length of the subject. This jumper is of the larger variety, maybe ½ inch diameter rear toe to front toe. Regarding Combine ZM, I used the Do Stack macro. I did a second closer shot of the same subject and did the processing in both “Do stack” and the newest macro weighted average correction. The later produced an unacceptable image that I can show a comparison on in your technical section when I have time.
Walt