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Luverly Lichen

Lubbyman
Posted 20/03/2024 - 20:06 Link
The lichen on the elderberry tree at the bottom of the garden is looking good at the moment so it seemed a good opportunity to try out the newly acquired Novoflex Castel-M focusing rack. This rack is designed for high magnification (x1 to x5 or more magnification) stacks so the Laowa 25mm macro was put on the K3iii and set to x5 at f4. That was then mounted on a geared head on a tripod, pointed in the right direction, fingers were crossed and stack shooting commenced. Here are a couple of the stacked results. To give an idea of scale, the disc at the top of the first and the cup in the second are each less than 1mm diameter.

It's worth mentioning that I doubt very much I could have done these - or at least done them so painlessly - without the Castel-M rack. Steps between successive shots in each stack were 0.018mm (less than 1/50 mm ). The rack certainly wasn't cheap, but it has definitely opened up new prospects for garden photography .

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

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Steve
JohnX
Posted 20/03/2024 - 20:16 Link
Wow! Another world! Great shots.

I did a lichen walk a few weeks back with London Wildlife Trust, and was lent a jewellers eye glass to look at the various lichen. I thought what I saw was impressive, but these shots are a whole new level.
Edited by JohnX: 20/03/2024 - 20:19
Posted 21/03/2024 - 08:35 Link
Great macros Steve.
Lubbyman
Posted 22/03/2024 - 22:10 Link
Thanks folks. x5 focus stacking outdoors was definitely a learning experience for me, quite different to doing x1 macro outdoors or even x5 indoors. Apart from anything else, even when you don't think there's any air movement what you see through the viewfinder is still moving slightly in the tiniest of tiny breezes. And then a cloud moves in front of the sun half way through the 100 shot stack... Still, there's plenty of lichen in the garden so lots of opportunity to climb up the learning curve. .

Steve

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