http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:17:58 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/63041-more-stacking.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:53:16 GMT I was intrigued and impressed by Bruce Williams spider stack and whilst recognizing that the laboured breathing and handshake that come with advancing years would prohibit such in camera aligning, I thought I would give it a try. I do not possess PS and tried stacking 5 shots of the spider who... I was intrigued and impressed by Bruce Williams spider stack and whilst recognizing that the laboured breathing and handshake that come with advancing years would prohibit such in camera aligning, I thought I would give it a try.
I do not possess PS and tried stacking 5 shots of the spider who resides in my bathroom next to his larder of harlequin ladybirds. My first align and stack using Zerene produced a spider with better than 20 legs. Discovering the less than intuitive alignment configuration in the software which allows the percentage offset on the x and y axis to be adjusted, I guessed at a value of 30%, which resulted in a photo of the spider with the appropriate number of legs.Whilst the aligning is for me less than natural I have nothing but praise for the retouching tool.
Moving onto the lichen and maintaining the 30% offset produced the kind of ghost edges that used to be the norm on 1960's televisions, a correction to 10% offset with this more solid image type gave a better result.
My final try, using a Minolta 50 mm macro just held in position in front of my Canon 500d was of the harlequin larva and attendant wildlife residing on a fence post under some sycamores. The working distance was so restricted with this set up that the ring flash was in contact with the edge of the 7cm fence post before I had anything approaching a focus. The idea, which was to try to photo a mini ecosystem, lacks the clarity I was seeking, but shows enough promise for me to be now awaiting a delivery of a 100mm macro Tokina. Don't tell the wife.
Having played around with macro for approaching 40 years, this new technique is exciting and I thank WAB and Bruce in particular for bringing it to my attention.[ [ url=http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/archive/showphoto.php?photo=117578][/url]

carbicester ]]> Photography Techniques carainbow http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/63041-more-stacking.html http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/63023-close-ups-bigma-short-end.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:33:17 GMT Recently I've been rather depressed about my photography, I decided I needed a break from my usual routine, so for a couple of months I've hardly touched my camera.
I've also had to make a hard decision.Due to financial pressures I had to choose which one of my two telephoto lenses I would sell. In the end I chose to let my Canon 400mm F5.6 L lens go, and I duly sold it last week.
This week I've been wondering if I did the right thing. Too late to worry about that now.:rolleyes:
Today I went out with my 40D and my Sigma 50-500mm, the other lens I decided to keep. The main reason I chose it was its flexibility, and today's shots show some of that advantage. The subject matter was nothing special, just a load of Black headed Gulls.
All of these shots were taken not at the 500mm end of the lens but closer to the other end, most of them were around 57mm, so just about any camera could have taken these shots.
I've also been very unhappy with the performance of my 40D. Its focusing is a joke, especially when shooting on the faster of the two continuous settings, it's so bad I actually preferred to use my 20D. Today I just used the slower of the two shooting rates and the success rate of my shots increased dramatically.

Any way, here's just some of the shots I got. Most of them are full frame, a few have been cropped very slightly.





















Normally I'd hardly ever take shots at the 50mm end of the lens, and obviously for many subjects it simply wouldn't work, but for greedy gulls it's an ideal setting to try. These gulls were so close, I could have easily reached out and touched them. All you need is someone with some of that dreaded bread to throw in the air, and the gulls do the rest! ]]> Photography Techniques glsammy http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/63023-close-ups-bigma-short-end.html http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/62271-digital-projector.html Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:45:37 GMT Would love a digy projector to go with new laptop. any good ones about for under a Grand every thing seems to be £thousands also is power point the best presentaion software for wildlife pics Would love a digy projector to go with new laptop.
any good ones about for under a Grand every thing seems to be £thousands
also is power point the best presentaion software for wildlife pics ]]> Photography Techniques Davy Crockett http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/62271-digital-projector.html http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/62248-johns-red-flanked-bluetail.html Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:56:19 GMT Altho John's photo was more than good considering the conditions it was taken in I thought the rarity of the bird and his efforts to get it deserved a little play in photoshop - I hope you don't mind John - unfortunately at the last minute I forgot to lighten in curves as stuff on the web always seems to display darker than on my machine. To achieve the result a Fade Correct and a Sharpen More or Unsharp Mask would do (its difficult for me to be sure how much as this was working on a very small pic lifted off the web) the original would give better results. Being me I carried on and removed the distracting branch and a nasty bright reflection ..........





The third one is lightened in curves but its still not as bright as on my machine - but hopefully it illustrates what I'm on about?! Err its not meant to be gospel as I can see places where if I was working properly on an original I would have been a bit more careful to blend in - but hopefully it shows what can be done if you have a photograph of something you really want to see reproduced as good as poss?

Pauline ]]> Photography Techniques PMG http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/62248-johns-red-flanked-bluetail.html http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/62238-46-frame-stack-sexton-beetle.html Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:35:55 GMT Thought I'd put this of on here as well as the insect section as it's a demonstration of how a certain time consuming stacking technique can capture detail.

It's one of my husband's specimens - a Sexton Beetle.

Taken with Nikon D300/Nikkor 60mm micro/reverse mounted pb6 bellows/Nikon twin macro light system.

Post processed in Photoshop CS4.

It makes you realise the tiny details are perfectly adapted for digging - ain't insects amazing? :D

Acher




]]> Photography Techniques acherontia http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/62238-46-frame-stack-sexton-beetle.html http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/61953-bird-sounds.html Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:50:00 GMT It's Sunday morning, new bird feeder in the garden to attract them and camera is ready, but nothing to be seen, we have a robin come into our garden on and off and would like to get him on pic, being a complete novice can anyone advise me if it's ok to play bird sounds to attract them or is this not fair on the birds.
scamps. ]]> Photography Techniques scamps180 http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/61953-bird-sounds.html http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/61517-six-frame-focus-stack-male-araneus-spider.html Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:24:44 GMT I thought some of you might be interested in a recent hand-held focus-stack: I use hand-held focus stacking quite a lot. Not always with the purpose of getting the whole of the subject in focus but often just to generally increase the depth of field to get a more pleasing image. Normally my... I thought some of you might be interested in a recent hand-held focus-stack:

I use hand-held focus stacking quite a lot. Not always with the purpose of getting the whole of the subject in focus but often just to generally increase the depth of field to get a more pleasing image.

Normally my subjects are quite tiny (say 5mm or less) so at f/16 or f/18 it only takes 3 frames to ensure most of the subject (excl. legs) is pretty much in focus.

This spider measured approx. 8mm excluding legs so was larger than most of my previous subjects. He was keeping quite still so I decided to go for a stack. I guestimated that 6 frames should cover him (probably should have gone for 8).

Camera: Nikon D300 + Nikon 105mm Macro VR.
Settings: ISO200, manual exposure, f/18 @ 1/250s. Flash was manual pop-up at 1/4 power. Focus was manual.

I always start by focussing on the closest part of the subject and gradually, shot-by-shot move the camera closer to the subject, visually checking the critical point of focus before firing the shutter. I work pretty quickly as I find doing so helps me to select the next point of focus (if I take too long I forget where I focussed on my last shot). Also the less time you take the less chance there is that the subject will move a leg or even do a runner.

I loaded the six images together into a Photoshop 'levels stack' and manually aligned them one by one (rotate and shift) using partial transparency in levels to check alignment. The 'level stack' was cropped and then each level was saved individually with filename suffix a, b, c, d, e and f.



These six manually aligned images were then stacked in Zerene Stacker (alignment is further refined at this stage). The stacked image was then taken back into CS3 for final sharpening, cropping and resizing.

The following two pics show (a) the full image at ~30% full size and (b) the close-up, cropped image at about 60% of full size. The full size image (not shown) is 2648x2648 pixels.



Bruce:) ]]> Photography Techniques Bruce Williams http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/61517-six-frame-focus-stack-male-araneus-spider.html http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/61513-fallow-deer-rut-photography-tips.html Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:19:34 GMT In my local woods in Sussex, I have spotted frequent signs that a fallow deer has been marking his terrority there. There's been loads of fraying of the trees and numerous scrapes all on the edges of the woodland overhanging a field and in the woodland around.

Last Autumn I saw a massive white buck rutting and I'm hoping to get a film him this year. There's a great unused hunting treestand which has a great view over literally all the deer's markings.

Does anyone know maybe the best time withing the day to film then? Any things to watch out for? If fallow deer prefer to rut in woodland or out in the field?

All hints and tips would be great!

Sean ]]> Photography Techniques Sean Howell http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/photography-techniques/61513-fallow-deer-rut-photography-tips.html