TWIP Focus Stacking a Praying Mantis

So this week, I found a baby praying mantis in the backyard and decided to capture it for my collection.  Praying Mantis are some of my favorite insects just due to their shear coolness.  I am unsure if it was a male or a female, but believe it to be a female as it didn't appear to have wings.  Females are larger and cannot fly due to them not having wings.  The males are much smaller and are the flyers of the bunch.  

This photo took place in my boxwood hedge which provided excellent camouflage to the bug.  No one saw him there but me.  I am pretty good a spotting little things as I was really into macro photography when I first started this journey, so I tend to spot things most don't.  

He was very keen to keep an eye on me even though I caught him glancing at a cricket in the area a time or two.  I was hoping that he was going to pounce on the cricket so I could get some carnage, but he was more interested in me not squishing him than food at the time.  I bet the cricket would have been more than enough for this guy as he was so small.  I used my macro lens with a 36mm extension tube and a continuous macro light to photograph this little guy.  

I ended up using 15 of the 30 photos I took of him in this position to make the below photos.  My previous focus stacking tutorial on here will give you a better idea about how I stack my photos.  It is pretty simple, I import the photos into lightroom, verify the photos I would like to see stacked together, and then import them all into photoshop.  Now photoshop doesn't do as good of job, at least the version I have, as some of the dedicated focus stacking software out there, but it works for what I use it for.  

In photoshop I align the layers and then stack them together.  I then touch up the resulting image as best I can and there you have it.  Takes about 10 minutes per picture if you were looking at it in a time sort of way.  

Here is the baby mantis.  As always, click on the photo for a larger version.  Like my Facebook for more of my work Facebook.com/alderimages.

TWIP Poor Man's 50 mm v 85mm v 100mm v 200mm Lens Test

I have a host of lenses I like to use on a regular basis.  I fiddle here and there with most of them not letting them gather a whole lot of dust.  Since upping the bar to a full frame I have found it interesting the actual lenses I use for the stuff that matters.  So I began getting the itch of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) again.  It may be that the camera that I have wanted was just announce or the fact that I have been itching for a lens for some time, but now am second guessing if I want to get rid of an old lens that I have and replace it with something a little better or possibly something totally new.  It's tough to distinguish, but I have been watching a lot of test videos of comparisons so I went through my stuff and didn't really have anything like this from my gear and how I shoot.  Now granted, I love my Canon 70-200 f/4 L IS.  It is the sharpest lens out there for a zoom.  I love it, but it doesn't get me to 2.8 which would give me lower light ability.  Now, I have lived with this lens for a long time and really don't feel the need to change, but I was interested in what 200mm compression looked like up against the lowest apertures on some of the other lenses I had.  Thus, I am going to give a go with a poor mans test of non-L lenses for my general thoughts and if I really want that shiny new 85 or a crusty old 135.  So, here are a couple shots of comparison.  I made my middle and littlest help me, which even though they got to blow dandelion seeds all over the yard, it didn't make them very up beat about the process.   I guess that 5 minutes could have been better spent.  

So I tested 4 lenses.  I have a 50mm 1.4, which is a really old lens and I would anticipate Canon upgrading any time in the near future.  I love mine.  It is very sharp even at 1.4 which most aren't.  I got a good copy.  I tested the 85mm 1.8., again, consumer lens but I really like mine.  Then tested one of my favorites, the Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens (not the IS version).  This lens is also crazy sharp and I have no need for IS on this lens. I have never had the need to spend the extra $500 for the pretty red ring and IS.  Lastly, I tested my 70-200 f/4L IS at 135mm and 200mm just to see what it would look like and the bokeh (background blur) that would be shown.  I tried to maintain the same composition in all of the photos so I could see what the background was going to look like.  I think it did a pretty good job to what I was thinking.  Here is what I came up with.

50mm @1.4

85mm @ 1.8

100mm @ 2.8

135mm @ 4.0

200mm @ 4.0

The 200mm and 135mm area definitely show the compression of the background a make it to almost nothing.  I really wonder what f2 would look like at 135mm.  That is a lens I have looked at for a long time.  May have to borrow one and see what results I get.  I also really like the way the 85mm looks.  Still gives the roundness and less compression than the longer distances, but a nice blur with some inclusion of the background.  Now the lens I have been itching for is the 1.4 version of this lens that you can actually use at 1.4.  Canon does make a version with a 1.2, however that baby is expensive and for what I do, I can't justify the price.

The reason I am more interested in the 85 version, is I used to shoot primarily on a crop sensor with my 50mm.  If your shooting canon, the crop sensor has a 1.6x field of view of a full frame, meaning what your actually seeing is the lens distance x 1.6.  So my 50mm was actually much more like the 85mm lens on my full frame.

I think this little test made up my mind...now I just need to win the lottery.

TWIP Neale Woods Nature Hike

A photography friend and I took a recent trip to a local nature preserve called Neale Woods north of Omaha.  Ticks were plentiful and flowers were spars.  We did encounter one flower that was pretty plentiful, so I decided to try my focus stacking technique.  I knew that we would more than likely be taking photos of the same flower and in an attempt to be a little bit original, I thought I would do that.    Now the challenging part of the whole focus stacking in the wild, is there is nothing to brace yourself on unless you carried a walking stick or a monopod, the wind was blowing like crazy (which didn't play nice with my suddenly developed allergy), and I didn't want to walk to far into the grass for fear of coming home with a tick attached to every part of my body.  Ticks are plentiful this time of year and walking in a nature preserve by the river is always a wonderful spot to encounter these nice little #$@#$.  So with that, my attempts.  

I had a couple different runs at the same type of flower, but due to the wind, lining them up in photoshop took a lot more work that I was willing to spend. So grabbed one of the shots that I preferred and worked with it.  Below are the results.  I also caught a wild daisy during a slight halt in the wind. 

Next, I had recently purchased a Tiffen VariND filter.  For those who don't know what that is, it is a neutral density filter that you can turn from 2 stops to 8 stops.  For the novice, stops are the amount of light that the camera lets in.  Thus, using this filter along with my Fotodiox 10 stop neutral density filter, I was able to move the light from regular to 12 or up to 18 stops slower.  Why you ask?  There were clouds moving over head for most of the day and at 2pm in the afternoon, you really need to make it dark coming into the camera as possible to get the illusion of movement.  Not wanting to hold up others with us photographing things that day, I did a couple quick shots.  One was 2 minutes and one 90 seconds.  The two minute exposure, I was using the full 18 stops and it wasn't nearly long enough of an exposure.  I adjusted the exposure and stops using the VariND and 90 second brought out all of the shadows in the building and the grass, exposed the sky correctly, but blew out the clouds.  Now that I have an idea, I am going to try this spot again sometime for a more dedicated session.  Below is the photo to go with the story.

TWIP Verbena

I had some flowers come up in the back yard planted a very long time ago.  They never came up prior to this year, so I was pleased to see them.  Flowers bring an ever present opportunity to do a little photography.  I for one, enjoy photographing flowers, but not like most people.  I prefer to focus stack my photos to give the flower the most detail you can get get, while leaving the background a smooth and creamy look.  A very generous Facebook friend provided me with the name of these lovely little flowers,  Verbena.  

I decided to photograph each bloom's color for this blog.  Who knows, maybe I a nice coffee table book may come out of this idea.  Anyway, here are the shots if you haven't seen them already.  I intend to make a nice simple focus stacking tutorial for anyone who is interest.  I'll link it to this post and future focus stacking posts.

  

Winter's Last Chance

I wrote this a couple months ago but for some reason never actually published it.  So here you go.

Winter is winding down and that's a good thing.  I am looking forward to warmer temperatures and color.  One thing that the winter does offer is a chance to see some amazing ice crystals.  You really have to look close to see the intricacies of the little crystals, but if you get down close enough they are beautiful.  Last winter I took tons of snowflake photos and never really got anything that wowed me that much.  I had a backlit snowflake that I thought was pretty cool, but everything else was mediocre in my eyes.  Saturday provided an opportunity to see a couple snowflakes and they were perfect.  It wasn't too cold that they were just frost pellets.  The air wasn't warm enough for rime to form.  So I went outside for a couple shots.  Fifteen minutes is about all I had to get something since the sun was setting and it was getting pretty dark.  It is very hard to see and focus on snowflakes through the lens in the first place, let alone in pitch black light.  Working with millimeters of focus depth makes taking multiple exposures a must.  I usually take between 7 to 20 shots of each flake and then focus stack them in photoshop to get a, hopefully, great looking snowflake.  Another problem I was running into with this little shoot is the plexiglass I was using.  I left it out pretty much all winter in anticipation of being able to shoot snowflakes.  Month after month of not having great snow, I gave up and let it sit.  The ice had formed on the surface an when trying to brush it off, I scratched it.  Now that may not seem like a big deal to the naked eye, but once your get down really close it makes a noticeable difference.  A little touch up was needed to clean that mess.  Anyway, here are a couple of flakes I happened to capture.  Thank you for looking!

Abstracts

Colder temperatures have made things a little harder than normal in terms of getting out to photograph.  Honestly, sometimes you have the motivation to get out there, but it's squashed the minute you step into -20 degree wind chills.  With that point in mind, I have been trying to do anything the last couple of days to get my mind in a better place.  On Facebook, one of the groups I belong to suggested trying oil in water and seeing what you come up with.  Yesterday, I decided to give it a try.  I used a crate I purchased for portrait shots.  I placed some scraps of construction paper on the bottom and stuck it beside the patio door.  The patio light is indirect which is perfect. Next, I took a 11x17 casserole dish and filled it half way with water. Finally, I placed a couple drops of olive oil in the water.  Using my macro lens to get good and close to the oil dots, I started snapping away.  Using the breaks in the construction paper provided some very lovely colors to the oil spots.  To see more, please visit my website at Alderimages.com.