Macro stack attempt

After seeing Aminstars attempt at macro stacking I thought I would give it another bash. Anyway, here is my 3 shot stack effort of a pretty grotty Hibiscus flower.

Mike

Wow, that is impressive. The stacking process is just a simple task, as the main aspect is getting the subjects right, and it seems you have achieved it to the minute details. I am impressed.

As always its not the tools at our disposal that matters, its who handles it. I will give it a shot again, but no way I will get close to that.

Mind if I hijack your thread to upload one that I tried to play a bit with the light under indoor lighting limitations?

Once again, great photo, love the red colour and the great details on it

Thanks but to be honest I think it was more luck than judgement


Help yourself

Mike,

What lens did you use for that image? I cant access EXIF data from the image.

This one Suffered a bit with lack of light, at least that's what I think. With my limited abilities I find hard to compose it properly and get the best out of it. I will try again outside by taking it in the garden and see if the outlook changes.

aminstar, you have a Sigma flash I see in your signature. Why not experiment with that to light the inside of the flower ? You can use various bits of paper to diffuse or bounce the light if it's too harsh.

A 20+ year old Vivitar MF 100mm f2.8 macro.


As RR says, use the flash Luke ... Sorry, Aminstar.
I use mine a lot for Macro, even the built in one can be useful (my Hibiscus was taken with onboard flash).

Thanks RR and Mike-P. I got to master the use of that flash. Everytime I attempt to use it I end up in a wide range of trouble, you definitely do not want even to see any of the pics I took while attempting macro with flash.

But I really want to start making full use of it. Will get to grips with it. I am stepping up my learning process now thanks to you all .

Well I had another go this morning and I'm not sure what exactly happened but CombineZM spat this out after doing it's thing.
I must admit I really like the effect ... pity I can't get anything like it when I try myself.

Mike, I'm not normally given to sycophancy, but even when you balls it up it still looks good :
I'm starting to not like you very much...

Mark and Mike, take a break, have a hotchoc

These are all really good. It would be helpful though if you could tell us a bit of information..... such as what type of focusing was used?... just the lens or a focus rail. What aperture and how many shots?

Amin you might find this interesting about black backgrounds and flowers (near the bottom of the page).

shim

Thanks for your kind comments Shim.

My images show all the EXIF Data, dont know why it doesn't also show that I used manual focusing. I have reverted to do all my macros MF now. Got myself a magnifier and it helps tremendously.

Just opened the page you sent me the link, seems very interesting. Off to immerse myself into reading it. , If there is anything I can apply to improve I am game straightaway. I love dark and black backgrounds, depending on the subject obviously, so going to explore some more of that.

Thanks again Shim

Thanks. just don't ask me to do it again ...

This one was 5 shots, hand held, f3.5.
Manual focus.
I purposly left the front and back out of focus just a touch as I prefer a bit of blur.

Like the chocolate though Aminstar, first one is very good.

Mike
love the colours. That purple just gets enhanced with the dark background. Cracking shot .
And the shadows on the few petals just gives it a huge impact, like it very much.

And how on earth did you manage to shoot it handheld , talk about steady hands, gosh!!!

And by the way, what method are you using to stack them?

I was reading the article Shim put the link up and I must admit, would love to try alterting backgrounds, specially to put a black one when I feel like it in an image that would bring more of an impact, but I am still treading waters with photoshop.

I think if I read somewhere or just get some tips I am sure I could manage it. Image editors are a totally different beast compared to other software manipulation, its totally out of my league. But having a blast learning it.

Talking about image editors, my PS elements 7 trial ends today, so I got to upgrade it. Used it for a month and have learnt to like it. Still a lot to learn though but have been exploring slowly and getting to grips with it. I guess I got to fork out the dosh for the version 7 then.

Amin have a look at the free version of PhotoFiltre. I've not used it much but it seems to have quite a lot of features. I used to use it mainly as a viewer to compare several shots for sharpness etc.

shim