Growing Up

[Stagecoach]

Tonight's exercise was to capture an image of a very small tomato seedling with a black background. The purpose of the exercise was simply to fill time as I have still not replaced the TV since it failed some 6 months ago and it's raining outside.

The first attempt used two SBR-200s set at different powers attached to the front of the lens and the settings adjusted to get the background (an unlit room) as near to black as I could. A fair amount of dodging and burning was required to achieve the final result. Settings, f32, 1/60s, ISO 200 with two shots stacked to provide greater DOF.



The second attempt was a first trial at light painting using a household torch. The initial guess at f29, 4 secs and a quick brush of each side with the torchlight produced the below image. The only PP was WB correction and sharpening. This attempt was not stacked.



This is certainly a lighting method I will experiment with more when I am looking for that dark even background.

Any comments are certainly welcome.

Grahame

[John 2]

An interesting experiment. The lack of focus stacking doesn't seem to have made much difference in the second image and the torch light seems to have produced a more natural green. However, not being able to see the plant itself, I could be wrong.

[FootLoose]

An excellent result for a first attempt, Grahame.

[NorthernFocus]

An excellent concept and well executed. Don't bother with the tele. Nothing on any more but rubbish anyway.

[Stagecoach]

John,

Thanks for commenting.

The accuracy of the green was not really a concern at the time and I adjusted the second shot in ACR to what I thought it should be but looking at the images now in daylight beside the subject they are both well out. The answer of course would be to use a grey card.

As for the focus stacking I find I often dabble with this because I can but then wonder was it really necessary.

[Stagecoach]

Greg,

Thanks, I may be tempted to play with this again tonight.

[Stagecoach]

Dan,

You are certainly correct about the TV, fortunately we only had two channels here, both poor, so have become a fan of the radio.