Archivos de diario de diciembre 2016

05 de diciembre de 2016

Verdugo Mountains Wildlife Hunt

Managed to find time to go to the  Verdugo Mountains Wildlife Hunt on December 10th. If anyone else is interested, there is still another day to register.

Publicado el diciembre 5, 2016 04:18 MAÑANA por glmory glmory | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

31 de diciembre de 2016

Focus Stacking

Got a Stackshot and have been trying to focus stack more seriously. Even with the Stackshot it is extremely tedious but I am starting to get it down.

First I take a stack of photos every 0.1mm. Right now I am using my FE 90 mm macro lens and a  Raynox 250 diopter. However it is not quite enough magnification so I will probably figure out a way to get to at least 4X, and maybe go all the way to 10X with a microscope objective.

The photos all look like this photo of the head of a fruit fly with just a tiny depth of field:




With a bunch of photos, 34 in this case, I can use Zerene stacker to make a composite image. It takes a bit of retouching, but so far it seems a lot more user friendly than Photoshop for stacking.

That gives me an image like this:



When I get a reasonable photo, I sometimes take a few more minutes to remove the point in Photoshop. This is enough trouble I usually don't bother but it is necessary for a photo that is not ugly:





The largest disadvantage I have found of this method is the time involved. Even with the Stackshot automating the photography process it takes quite a while to stack and retouch. Also, it is very difficult on living insects. That adds a lot of prep time for trying to put the insect on a pin or point. That is not something I have experience with so I have turned more than a few into a mess.

Sometimes I have got it to work with live insects. It requires a lot of patience though as you must wait until it stays still for 20 seconds or so to get a decent stack. The results are usually much more interesting with living insects though:

Here is a ~2mm minute pirate bug. It is a shot that I really would have not been able to get with any other method:



Publicado el diciembre 31, 2016 06:25 TARDE por glmory glmory | 6 observaciones | 7 comentarios | Deja un comentario