Tom Robbins
Member
These little guys are about half an inch wide. A touch of off shoe flash was used to add a little contrast and to darken the background a bit. Posted just for fun.
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Deptford Pink
- Thread starter Tom Robbins
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These little guys are about half an inch wide. A touch of off shoe flash was used to add a little contrast and to darken the background a bit. Posted just for fun.
Jeffrey Seidel
New member
A beautiful little flower! I do have a question about technique. I just started into the world of macro photography and have run into an issue with plants that have tinsel-like (for lack of a better descriptive word) parts like those stamen/pistils (?), whatever they are, that are coming from the central part of the flower. I find that they frequently come out of post-processing looking like they have been severely over-sharpened, even when masked out of the sharpening stage(s). There are times when I even have to hit them with a slight blur or burn to reduce the highlights or the sparkles seem overly pronounced. Do you have an issue like this from time to time? If so, do you do anything to control it at the time you take the shot? I find this to be the case with many plants that have fine white/silver hairs, no matter where on the plant they occur.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jeffrey,
This reminds me of Fiddler on the roof when one of the songs refers to questions that would even make the rabbi go cross eye from complexity!
I hope Tom can still focus. LOL! I know the issue and have seen people's pictures in which the stigma and stamen are highly reflective. I think it's real!
Asher
This reminds me of Fiddler on the roof when one of the songs refers to questions that would even make the rabbi go cross eye from complexity!
I hope Tom can still focus. LOL! I know the issue and have seen people's pictures in which the stigma and stamen are highly reflective. I think it's real!
Asher
Jeffrey Seidel
New member
I'm just not sure how to go about dealing with what I shall term 'the tinsel effect'. There are many instances where I didn't even notice the highlights were present when I was taking the shots, just too tiny an area in the viewfinder. It usually isn't until I get the RAW file from ACR into Photoshop that I can get the image to 100% and spot trouble from the sparklies. Even though they usually aren't blown out, they are distracting to the overall image. Just wondering if there are ways of dealing with the effect prior to post-processing with lighting or perhaps use of a polarizer (even though I'd hate to lose almost 2 stops to a CP)?
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jeffrey,
I see this is troubling! Do you have an example of this phenomenon? If it get's traction we'll make a separate thread, but for now it might be interesting for Tom and the rest of us to see.
Asher
I see this is troubling! Do you have an example of this phenomenon? If it get's traction we'll make a separate thread, but for now it might be interesting for Tom and the rest of us to see.
Asher
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Well, you did a good job of this tiny flower. I think that such small flowers represent a challenge in framing. How else have you composed this flower. I happen to like this one. You excluded the stem of the flower, cutting through a number of branches from that stem. I wondered what it might look like with more included.
Now do not interpret my comment as being down on you framing, far from it! I like what you have done and it's effective. I'm just interested what else you came up with since the choices are not obvious.
Also where was your light?
Asher
Tom Robbins
Member
Hi Asher,
The off shoe flash was at minimum power and held straight off to left of the frame. It was essentially side-lit fill.
You are absolutely on the money about such little things being difficult to frame, especially when they are in an uncontrolled wild setting. Shifting the camera location by a fraction of an inch can bring in unwanted background and foreground elements. I used the Canon 180mm macro with 2x t.c and 25mm extension tube at f/22 1/4 sec shutter.
This is the same flower, but taken without flash and without the t.c. and extension tube at f/11 and 1/2 sec shutter. It looks as if some edge burning was done, but this is solely due to selection of the background. I've found a sneaky way to do this is to use the depth-of-field preview button.
Hello Jeffrey,
I have never thought of the "tinsel effect", as you describe it, as something to avoid. As you can see from the second shot, the effect is less noticeable without flash. You might also notice a little less acuity in the second photo. It was a very calm morning, but a half second macro exposure is often a roll of the dice. (I was going to say a shot in the dark, but changed my mind)
The off shoe flash was at minimum power and held straight off to left of the frame. It was essentially side-lit fill.
You are absolutely on the money about such little things being difficult to frame, especially when they are in an uncontrolled wild setting. Shifting the camera location by a fraction of an inch can bring in unwanted background and foreground elements. I used the Canon 180mm macro with 2x t.c and 25mm extension tube at f/22 1/4 sec shutter.
This is the same flower, but taken without flash and without the t.c. and extension tube at f/11 and 1/2 sec shutter. It looks as if some edge burning was done, but this is solely due to selection of the background. I've found a sneaky way to do this is to use the depth-of-field preview button.
Hello Jeffrey,
I have never thought of the "tinsel effect", as you describe it, as something to avoid. As you can see from the second shot, the effect is less noticeable without flash. You might also notice a little less acuity in the second photo. It was a very calm morning, but a half second macro exposure is often a roll of the dice. (I was going to say a shot in the dark, but changed my mind)
Jeffrey Seidel
New member
Yes, I have a 'corrected' example:
f/11 @1/125 sec, ISO 400, sunlit - late morning over my right shoulder, no flash, Canon 100mm macro
Tinsel effect happened at the base area of the pistil/stamen stalks (about where the 4 white petals are attached). I toned it down with a slight blur such that it now appears as a sort of granular/gritty looking area. Otherwise that area had tons of tiny highlights that were extremely distracting and didn't take well to sharpening (turned into instant halos, even at extremely low radius settings). They were masked out of the sharpening process and then blurred as mentioned above.
Tom,
Excellent job on the second shot. Not sure how you pulled off a 1/2 sec shot, I know I sure can't. I am guessing that the effect I'm talking about is magnified by the strong sunlight I normally shoot in. I'm not sure how I get around that except to shoot earlier in the morning when the sun is lower and 'cooler' in strength.