Add your guess in the comments below and I'll let you know how close you are!
Pretty common things in our surroundings can look downright strange when taken out of context. Would you like to take a guess what this is a picture of?
Add your guess in the comments below and I'll let you know how close you are!
4 Comments
Crab spider on Fleabane flower, 5x life-size (in camera)Photo-stacking is a great boon to macrophotography for those who shoot digital. It allows you to greatly increase the depth of field over what can be done in-camera. Depth of Field (DOF) (the plane that is sharp) can be extremely limited in macrophotography - as magnification increases, the DOF decreases. And as you enlarge the image, DOF decreases even more. Let me use this image as an example. I brought this young Crab spider on the Fleabane flower into my studio for this image - or more accurately, this series of images to make this 8 image composite. I used Canon's fantastic MP-E 65mm/2.8 lens, which allows you to shoot from 1x to 5x life-size without adding extension tubes or bellows. I set the lens for full magnification (5x); my plan was to get all the "face and head" into focus. And the spider cooperated, allowing me to take all 8 images before it moved. Here are the two "book-end" images, showing the small depth of field and the front and back of my "sharp" area: I took these images with the lens stopped down to an aperture of f/4.5 (a couple stops from wide open for best sharpness). At 5x magnification that means the effective aperture - or what the aperture really is with the added lens extension required to focus that close - was f/27.
At 5x magnification with a 65mm lens using an aperture of f/27 (and planning on printing to 8x print magnification), the DOF is a meager 0.02mm - that's 2/100 of a millimeter! If you plan on using the image "printed" smaller - for example, like a 4"x6" image, the DOF increases to 0.05mm - still pretty small! Now, there are a lot of assumptions that go into determining what's acceptably sharp, for deciding what your depth of field - or depth of "what is acceptably sharp to you" is. One is how large you intend to enlarge the final image, like I mentioned above. Another is how well you can see - the arguable standard is 5 to 6 line pairs per millimeter. For my formulas, I've settled on 10 lp/mm - just because I am quite near-sighted and can make out 10 lines per mm without my glasses. I could probably double the 0.02mm to 0.04 to be practical - and then double that again for showing it at this magnification on-line - especially with the post-process sharpening we can now do in digital images. For proper photo-stacking, you need to overlap the sharp areas of each image by about 50% (overlapping 25% front and back). That means that the combined DOF for this image, as seen in this posts, is (for all practical purposes) about 1 millimeter. How much bigger than life is the image you're seeing? Here's how to figure that out. The image was taken at 5x life-size with a "full-size" 35mm digital camera, so the height of the chip is about 0.9 inch. To determine the magnification you are seeing, measure the height of the larger image above on your computer and multiply it by 4.5 (which you would get by multiplying 0.9 by 5). For example, on my computer the larger composite image measures 4.5 inch high. So, 4.5 x 4.5 (or doing it the long way, 4.5 x 0.9 x 5) = 20.25; or about 20x the spider's actual size. Cool, huh? I spent some time this afternoon out taking pictures of today's ice storm. It was quite a pretty day, but I had forgotten how painful frostbitten fingers are as they warm back up. Now I remember.
While it is snowing right now as I write this, we missed most of the snow that the more northern part of the state got last night & today (about 10 inches, I hear). We got sleet and freezing rain, instead. The trees and grass are just loaded with it - bending down under the weight. The branches are creaking as they sway back and forth, the ice cracking as the branches bend with the wind. Kinda' cool - Wisconsin Spring! One giant step closer to spring!
The geese, robins and Sandhill Cranes arriving are some of the first signs of Spring, to me. But once the Silver Maples blossom, Spring is just around the corner! Enjoy! We had a high-rise of water droplets in our garden this morning. With a soft rain pattering the leaves, the rain drops hung like crystals from these young Asiatic Lily leaves.
What a pleasant, peaceful morning! There’s nothing like a little rain and a lightly overcast sky to really saturate autumn colors. Adding a polarizing filter, when conditions are right, can make the colors "pop" even more! These Silver Maple leaves caught on the tree’s lichen covered trunk are now a long-lasting reminder of a nice quiet walk when part of me was saying "stay inside".
There seems to be a lesson there, for those times we'd rather stay warm and comfortable. When we choose to listen, those clear -- though quiet -- calls beckoning us outside can really be productive! Have you had similar experiences? An inviting path meanders into a beautiful Maple woods.
A comfortably cool, misty autumn day; an occasional gentle rain softly pattering through the vibrant canopy overhead. The fresh yellow and orange carpet underfoot sponges up the clean, new moisture. Bright, new-fallen autumn leaves add a tang to the rich, earthy, fertile loam under gently swaying branches. Let’s take a hike… Oops, Pardon me! Eastern Yellow Jackets are a type of wasp that builds their nest in the ground; I usually discover them after I’ve run over the entrance with my lawn mower. They don't like that very much... I don't either, since they tend to make their point rather venomously. So now I keep an eye open for the tidy little clearings they make around the nests’ entrance hole, and their busy inbound and outbound flights.
The nest can be a very busy place, especially later in the season as the colony grows. The industrious wasps are constantly coming and going, foraging for food and enlarging the nest. These two Eastern Yellow Jackets bumped into each other just above the nest entrance during such a busy time. One wasp was flying off to hunt as another came zipping back with a bit of food clenched in its mandibles, or jaws. This image is a crop of the original, which was taken at ½x life-size, as I lay at their nest entrance. In my experience this magnification seems to be the "sweet spot" for best results. It leaves about 16 inches between camera and subject -- which is great for skittish insects... to say nothing of my comfort level with ones that sting! It also gives me more depth of field than taking them at life-size, which means my success rate for sharp images of flying insects is much greater. Plus, it gives me more leeway for timing the shutter release as they fly into the 2 x 3 inch target area. When I tried taking them at life-size, my success rate was bordering on abysmal... half life-size increases it to about one in ten shots! Thank goodness for digital over film! Winter is holding on, but signs of spring are starting to warm us up.
The snow is receding, even though the icy temperatures return at night. Geese are returning, congregating on open patches of field. There's even a robin looking somewhat dazed and confused in the yard. But, spring is on it's way... snow softening to dripping water, longer days, warmer sun... ...rousting us to another springtime. It’s that time of year again to enjoy the awesome fall colors of our rural Wisconsin home. I’ve been out doing that … but, the home is quieter this year, and autumn is showing me another, deeper, parallel between nature and life. Our youngest is off to college and the nest is bare for the first time in almost thirty years. Apparently this is a goal for some people, but we’ve never looked forward to this day. Well, yes, in some ways -- we’ve always worked for our children’s lasting happiness, building their dreams, watching them grow... So, we have known and prayed for this day. And, yet… my wife and I feel, hear, perk up at the memories echoing in the emptiness of our home and hearts. Like the autumn trees… Last weekend the falling leaves called me into the company of the trees, sharing their melancholy as I watched the leaves pirouette and glide in their dance from the home of their youth, off on their next grand adventure. Like our kids -- off making new friends… …finding ways to contribute their own new, unique blessings into the world… We offer a parent’s blessings and prayers to all youngsters making their way into the world; and to every other parent’s bitter-sweet swell of pride, worry, hope … for all the pieces of their hearts dancing out into the world -- our prayers of Peace & Growth to all.
|
Closer Viewsis my photo-invitation to slow down and soak in all the wonder and beauty woven through creation. Join for email updates!
Archives
August 2022
Categories
All
|