Some more low data content images

[gardenersassistant]

I use very small apertures to increase the depth of field I can get from single-capture (i.e. not focus stacked) images. These very small apertures cause a great deal of diffraction softening. In this post Rik showed that the technique I use has reached beyond the limit of accurately capturing fine detail, even at the restricted 1300 pixel height image size that I use. For that reason I refer to these outputs as "images based on photographs" rather than "photographs".

However, Rik also wrote that "I don't see that any of this impacts Nick's use of this technology for his purposes", which is to try to produce images that, to my eye at least, look pleasing when viewed as a whole from a normal viewing distance. In that spirit therefore here are some images produced using this technique since last summer. There are 1300 pixel high versions of these images in this album at Flickr. (The images have been sharpened for best viewing - for my eyes and visual tastes at the time of image processing - unresized at 1300 pixels high.)

Note: I know that some of these images had static subjects and might well have looked better if focus-stacked. However a lot of my subjects are not static, or are static only very briefly, and for me at least it isn't practical to switch between non-stacked and stacked imaging in the field for what are often fleeting opportunities, and for subjects which are often, especially in the autumn and winter, rather smaller than I could hope to focus stack hand-held in the field at the magnifications of up to 8X that I use for single-capture imaging.

#1

2016 01 1987 02 2021_11_20 DSC04394_PLab4 LR 1300h DNAIc-Edit LR -AIG 1300h by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#2

2016 02 2015 22 2022_02_17 DSC02403_PLab5 1300h DNAIcMedLo by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#3

2016 03 2014 05 2022_02_14 DSC01931_PLab5 1300h DNAIcMedLo by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#4

2016 04 2010 54 2022_02_09 DSC01756_PLab5 1300hDNAIc by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#5

2016 05 2010 29 2022_02_09 DSC01666_PLab5 1300hDNAIc by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#6

2016 06 2014 17 2022_02_14 DSC02014_PLab5 1300h DNAIcMedLo by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#7

2016 07 2007 63 2021_08_09 DSC05596_PLab4-Edit LR 1300h DNAIc by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#8

2016 08 2015 43 2022_02_17 DSC02469_PLab5 1300h DNAIcMedLo by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

[Scarodactyl]

I don't think you need to justify any of your techniques--the images speak for themselves. I've enjoyed every one of these sets quite a bit.

[Lou Jost]

Yes, these are beautiful images! The smooth transition from in-focus to out-of-focus is also refreshing after looking at lots of stacked images

[Sumguy01]

Very nice.
Thanks for sharing.

[gardenersassistant]

I don't think you need to justify any of your techniques--the images speak for themselves. I've enjoyed every one of these sets quite a bit.

Yes, these are beautiful images! The smooth transition from in-focus to out-of-focus is also refreshing after looking at lots of stacked images

Very nice.
Thanks for sharing.

Thank you all for your kind and encouraging comments.

[bobfriedman]

excellent work here.. quite nice.

[gardenersassistant]

excellent work here.. quite nice.

Thanks Bob.

[MarkSturtevant]

How you do that is like voodoo to me, but still these are gorgeous.
The water drop picture inspires me to mention that it would be really cool to have a picture like that, with some tiny plankton critters swimming in the water drop.
And that snail ... If i understand correctly, you can see the eye stalks and the dark retinas of the eyes thru the shell. That is very special!

[gardenersassistant]

How you do that is like voodoo to me, but still these are gorgeous.

Thanks Mark.

The water drop picture inspires me to mention that it would be really cool to have a picture like that, with some tiny plankton critters swimming in the water drop.

Oh yes, that would be wonderful. (No idea how one might do it though!)

And that snail ... If i understand correctly, you can see the eye stalks and the dark retinas of the eyes thru the shell. That is very special!

Yes, I think that is what we are seeing. It was very small, so small I couldn't tell that it was a snail shell with my naked eye. It was just another little blob on a leaf, and there are many of those - mainly fragments of plants or animal parts, or little piles of .... stuff. I can't tell what they are until I take a photo of them. Here is an example from our garden yesterday. I could easily have ignored it as a little blemish on the leaf, but it turned out to be a something. A scale insect perhaps.


2022 07 2022_02_27 DSC02952_PLab5 1300h DNAIcLoHi by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Presumably the snail was a hatchling. It says here at snail-world.com: The shell of the snail develops since it is an embryo inside its egg. Under favorable conditions, eggs hatch after approximately two weeks to 1 month and snails emerge with a soft shell. Therefore, they need to feed themselves to get calcium, and the first source to get it is by consuming the remains of their egg and even other eggs that have not yet hatched. Shells continue to grow with the snail over the course of its life. The baby snails have, in addition to a soft shell, an almost transparent body that acquires strength and color as it grows. The first color they usually have is bluish but then turns to brown or the color that characterizes their species.

It's shape inside the shell looks a bit odd to me with those big blobs with the eyes in them on such narrow stalks; I wonder if it was malformed. Then again, I have no knowledge in this area - perhaps that is just what they look like early on. Interesting though. Something I've never seen before.