Newbie second attempt

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

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stephenlewis
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Newbie second attempt

Post by stephenlewis »

Hello everyone.

Second attempt at this macro thingy!

The photograph was taken using a Nikon D800, a Nikkor 50mm enlarging lens reverse mounted on a set of bellows, all mounted on a Wemacro rail. The subject was a Green and black horned beetle (Mystroceros rouyeri). The lighting was two flash units, which are new to me and took a while to fathom.

I finished up with 90 photographs, which were divided into three stacks each with 30 photographs. Each individual stack was processed using Zerene Stacker to produce a Dmap image, and the three resulting images were then stacked into a final image using Dmap. The final image was processed using a combination of Photoshop and Topaz.

Image

BugEZ
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Post by BugEZ »

Wow! Excellent work! Shiny beetles can be quite tricky.

Why did you subdivide the images? How did you pick the dividing point?

Once again, my complements!

Keith

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

Very encouraging:).
Being picky, there is a fuzzy patch about 3/4 the way up each "horn". Any idea why?
Chris R

mawyatt
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Location: Clearwater, Florida

Post by mawyatt »

Stephen,

Great work!! Only 2nd attempt....amazing results!!!

Best,

Mike[/b]

stephenlewis
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Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:49 pm
Location: Cheshire. GB.
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Post by stephenlewis »

BugEZ wrote:Wow! Excellent work! Shiny beetles can be quite tricky.

Why did you subdivide the images? How did you pick the dividing point?

Once again, my complements!

Keith
Hi Keith

After a lot of trial and error with my first effort I found that this method resulted in fewer artefacts. The split into three again came from experimenting as I found that anymore than 35 or so images also produced artefacts. I think that generally the fewer images stacked the fewer problems.

stephenlewis
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Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:49 pm
Location: Cheshire. GB.
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Post by stephenlewis »

ChrisR wrote:Very encouraging:).
Being picky, there is a fuzzy patch about 3/4 the way up each "horn". Any idea why?
Hi Chris.

I think that my starting point for focus wasn’t accurate enough, and the two out of focus areas are a result of operator error !

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

OK we'll let you off (for now ;))

This is part way through the depth though, isn't it? ? Or, when you said 3 stacks, did you have to back off coarse focus and restart fine, or something?
I'm just wondering if you were doing someting "odd".
Chris R

Sumguy01
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Location: Ketchikan Alaska USA

Post by Sumguy01 »

:D Very nice.
Thanks for sharing.

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