Monday, July 30, 2012

Spider with Kill (Live Stack)

Macro Magic

here is the explanation of the process and 3 photos used

Macro Magic


(freeware) Explanation of stacking 3 photos of a spider with its kill.

Equipment used:
Canon 1000D + Sigma 70-300 (@168mm) + Raynox DCR 250
Light: YN467 with ring light diffuser.

f/9 : 1/200 : ISO 800

Method:
1. Exported 3 RAWs from FastStone Viewer (freeware)
2. In Combine ZP (freeware!) did the "alignment" (The auto-stacking was not giving good results, so did only alignment)
3. Saved 3 aligned images as tif
4. Opened the background image first in GIMP (freeware)
5. Opened the 2nd Image as Layer and recovered the parts with details MANUALLY
6. Opened the Last image as Layer and recovered the parts (right eye)
7. Levels, recover Highlight / Shadow in GIMP
8. Exported Tiff
9. Reduced the noise in Noiseware community Edition (Freeware)
10. Opened the noisefree image as layer on top of original and recovered only the b/g (i did not want the face to loose details due to noiseware)
11. Final Sharpening and export
12. Resize and logo in FastStone Resizer
13. Created the collage and overlay text in Picasa 3 (freeware)

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Ready to Jump

Macro Magic


First shot with my new creation: DIY Ring Flash Diffuser. (will create a blog post with the process if anyone wants to replicate).

 

Canon 1000D + Sigma 70-300 (@168mm) + Raynox DCR 250 
Light: YN467 with ring light diffuser.

f/9 : 1/200 : ISO 800 (Yes.. the ring-light diffuser is leaking some light, i need to re-design the joints).

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Hibiscus Anther

Macro Magic


One more in the series... same flower (hibiscus) but this time the item in focus is pollen balls on Anther see image in comment to see the scale)

Anther itself is about 1mm in size and each one has 40-50 pollen balls on it.

Canon1000D + 3 Extension Tubes (manual focus) stacked together (stacked length 49mm) + 50mm 1.8 (opened to f14) Raynox + YN467 + Home made diffuser 2.0

Thanks Anil Kaka Shevante for letting me try his extension tubes.

Hibiscus Stigma

Macro Magic

Extreme Macro (Its Stigma on Hibiscus flower pistil.. see first comment to see the diagram)

Canon1000D + 3 Extension Tubes (manual focus) stacked together (stacked length 49mm) + 50mm 1.8 (opened to f14) Raynox + YN467 + Home made diffuser 2.0

Thanks Anil Kaka Shevante for letting me try his extension tubes.