Asclepius

[DanK]

Asclepius seeds from our garden. It's a type of milkweed, which we planted to attract butterflies. 26 images stacked with Zerene PMax. C&C welcome, as always.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[FootLoose]

Nice shot, Dan.

I feel it is a little too tightly cropped, though. The fine filaments of the seeds are the main point of interest for me, so I would like to see the full length of one of them against the black background, either on the left or right side.

[mknittle]

Nice work Dan. It almost looks like something you would see in the depths of an ocean.

[Stagecoach]

Very good Dan, obviously a very breeze free location and some careful movement.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Dan. Congrats on your work, very nice image My I ask how you got that black BG, with a flash?

[deetheturk]

Very good Dan, wonderful detail!

[IzzieK]

Very nice, Dan...I like the silky looks of it. I googled how it really looks like and I saw your post right in the first page.

[rudi]

Wonderfull stuff Dan. Not easy to stack with all those fine hairs.
As Greg, I would also like to see a little bit more of it.
I like the rainbowcolors in some of the fillaments.

[Mike Buckley]

Terrific light, detail and composition!

[ST1]

Nicely captured Dan, well done

[DanK]

Thanks, all.

Re the suggestion of a looser crop: thanks. I'll play with that on another attempt.

Re wind: it's worse than that. I do this indoors, so there is no wind, but it takes almost nothing to get the filaments moving. Just refocusing the lens often starts them swaying, as does the slightest movement by me, because the wood floor moves. I use a remote release and mirror lock up. After raising the mirror, I try to stand completely still for a few seconds and then trip the shutter. Because these are 1 second exposures, I have to stay still until the shutter closes. I had to throw out one image because the filaments didn't align.

Binnur, re the black: I don't use flash. I use continuous lighting so that I can easily see the effects of moving the lights around. I'll post a picture below of a similar setup with a different flower. Flash would have the advantage of freezing motion. However, even with this light source, the black background is often mottled by light, if the image needs light pointing toward the background. Even though I edit these primarily in Lightroom, I fix this in photoshop. I create a selection based on the black color and then modify it as needed with the lasso tool. Once the selection is OK, I use it to create a mask on a levels adjustment layer, and I pull the selected area down to pure black.

[HaseebM]

I like the silken texture. Must have been difficult to focus stack with so many thin hair-like tendrils which could move even if you breath.

[FrankMi]

The image is stellar Dan, but it is the details and setup shot that are truly helpful for those of us that are trying to learn how to take images like this. Thank you so very much for taking the time to educate us!

[Texas Dave]

I can only imagine how many budding photographers you just saved from rolling in the yard trying to get multiple shots of a milk weed seeds.

Thanks for posting the set up and for saving me from the grass stains in my jeans.