Thank you!
Rik, To my opinion the D3 is better than what I tried before but it may well be that others have a different opinion and the difference lies in small details, and it is also a matter of postprocessing. I have never tried a Canon and I am curious if they have a cleaner image than Nikon. When you have a very clean grainless image it is much easier to sharpen! Therefor I would be curious about the differences between different cameras. But perhaps this is not the place to go into a technical discussion.
Piotr, it was done with a 16X achromat. it is from a mounted Radiolaria slide I made some years ago and they are arranged just like this with a composition that is made especially to create a good composition for a picture. I have a steady hand
and always breath upwards while manipulating radiolaria. I use a cat's whisker for picking up the radiolaria.
Charlie, I should try that plug in! Thanks! I often turn 8 bits into 16 bits when operating with extensive curves or levels but this may help! Aha, it is 'Banding' of course. Sorry for 'bending' your language!
Yes, in this case I had some banding. But with stacks I always make an image of the background without the subject (I also do this with insect stacks) This way you can use that background image to retouch halos and other artefacts.
And when there is still banding I place a layer on top of it. I pick the main colour of the background, You can even use a gradient picking the top colour and bottom colour. I used that as an extra in this case. But I make that layer 30% so it still has an uneven shape of gradient. Otherwise it would look unnatural. The actual image looked almost like this. Than I put a grain of 3 to that colour layer, than I fade it to 10 or 15 percent depends on teh grain that is already in the image. Than I put a blur to that layer and I fade that blur to 40 or 50 percent. And than with an opacity mask you can make the subjects appear again.
But I try to avoid having to use these tricks. In many cases I have to do little to improve the images, it is a matter of good preparation of the slides. But with stacking you always need some manipulations, or don't you Charlie????
So I think with all our manipulations we may make each other crazy and give the impression that we have a solution for immediately brilliant results!
So it is important to emphasize that we all use adjustments and sharpening. A disturbed image can always be made nice on a 800 pixels size. But we also like to have our images look o.k. at full resolution. that is what I like because I often print my images large for exhibitions.
For me the D3 could be a solution. I have not done much microscopy this year, ot just becasue of other projects, but also because I wasn't pleased with my results. I always had the idea that full frame would be better, but it is probably simply only easier. I am curious if Charlie has something to say about the image quailty between Nikon and Canon, or if he has tried a full frame. The only think I can say is that I am not a very systematic person and because of that not the most reliable person for testing and comparing.
One of my new years resolutions is to improve my work flow and my microscope set up. I still stand on a chair in order to take photomicrographs. Can you believe that? I also want to connect a computer to my camera. I now have to drive to my studio to work on the pictures. It is all very inconvenient and silly.
But hey, I did put an Avatar in my postings. It took some time because nobody ever takes a picture of me.
This was done by my girlfriend with a telephone.
Sorry for the idiotic long read. But since nobody takes their bicycle and come over to have a drink with me in the pub I have to write it all down:)
Wim
