Anthers and stigma of a Christmas Cactus flower

[rjlittlefield]

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]

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!

[Harold Gough]

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

Harold

[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]

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

[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]

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.