Fuschia series

[DanK]

A long time ago, I had the idea of doing flower shots in series, each one closer than the previous. I did only a few and didn't continue. I decided over the past few days to try again. Here is a series, with some fairly quick eding that might need some tweaking. C&C welcome, as always.

All are stacks, using Zerene DMap edited with PMax to remove halos. Edited in both LR and PS, but nothing very fancy.

#1



#2



#3

[Cantab]

An interesting set of photos. And I have a very similar fuschia in the garden, now waiting to be photographed!

How large were the stacks, particularly for #2?

[DanK]

13, 13, and 26 shots, respectively. I suspect I could have used fewer, but I err on the side of too many so as to be sure not to have out-of focus areas.

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[PhotoByTrace]

I really like your idea for the series, getting in closer for each stack. Love the wonderful textures in the third one as a result. Great colour control too. Lighting?
Enjoyed this, thanks for sharing!

[DanK]

Thanks, all. Trace, I use very simple continuous lighting, usually two but occasionally one halogen lamp in a hair light. I bounce a 75W bulb off an umbrella for diffuse light and use a 50W light with diffusion for direct light, moving both around until I see something I like. Here's the actual setup for that shot, with the latter moved slightly:



You can barely see the Wimberley "plamp" from which I hung the flowers. The diffusion on the direct light at the left is just two sheets of baking parchment paper. I had the direct light aimed up from below, as it is in the photo.

I still don't have a proper backdrop. What you see there is what I have been using: a black fleece I bought years ago on close-out at REI, draped over a wooden clothes-drying rack that my daughter left in the basement after she finished college. On my list is to get a proper background.

The advantage of this setup is that you can see the effects of the lighting in real time. It's also cheap and easy compared with setting up a bunch of strobes. The disadvantage is that the exposures are long, and if you are on a wood floor, slight vibration may cause the flower to move enough to ruin a close-up. I have trained myself to stand very still, lock the mirror up, and then wait until everything has settled down, but that same evening I actually ruined a series of another flower.

[billtils]

Dan

Nice idea very well executed. Thanks also for the details of your set-up.

[ST1]

Nice work Dan, I notice that you have a block of Oasis on the tabletop. Is that for standing a stemmed flower in place rather than hanging it from your Plamp


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[DanK]

Nice work Dan, I notice that you have a block of Oasis on the tabletop. Is that for standing a stemmed flower in place rather than hanging it from your Plamp


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Peter,

Holding the flowers is often the hardest part. Yes, sometimes I use the foam you noticed, if the flower has a stiff stem. Sometimes I hang it from the plamp, but that doesn't work well unless you want it hanging straight down, as the top hinge is completely free, and it sometimes is visible in the photo. Sometimes I put it in a very narrow vase and put that on a pile of books. (One of my earlier postings showing lighting for a different flower has the flower on a vase that is on a huge pile, with a trumpet case on the bottom and a stack of statistical software manuals atop that.) And for things other than flowers, I have sometimes used a sticky wax made from blending together beeswax and the wax used to seal toilet drains, in equal measure.

All of this is made more difficult by the need to avoid motion with long exposures and focus stacks.

What I really want is something like a plamp that has a clamp that will not rotate freely. I just haven't found anything like that.

Dan

[Tom Barry]

I've never done focus-stacking, but these really fine shots pique my interest.

[Manfred M]

The advantage of this setup is that you can see the effects of the lighting in real time.

That too is the advantage of studio strobes with modelling lights. The downside is the cost.

Another beautifully done set, Dan.

[Cantab]

Dan, thank you for posting the details of your studio setup--very helpful.

[PhotoByTrace]

Thanks Dan for this in-depth info and the photos of your setup; invaluable! I've been contemplating trying a focus stack on my roses, so this is wonderfully helpful. You've given me things to think about that I hadn't previously..... thank you!

[DanK]

Thanks, everyone. Manfred, maybe I will move to studio strobes at some point, but for now, the expense and the complexity for a novice deters me. Trace and Tom, stacking opens up a whole new world, if you like photographing small things. There have been quite a few threads here over the years, so you can probably find good information by searching. (I haven't tried.) You can stack (one algorithm only, with limited control) in Photoshop, but I use dedicated software. I've been using Zerene for years. it's easy to use, offers two different algorithms that behave differently, allows flexibility in setting the parameters for stacking, and has a superb retouching tool specifically designed for stacking. It's also very well supported by the developer, who has excellent tutorials online and been very responsive when I needed help.

In this series, I made substantial use of a specific function Zerene offers. Focus stacking can produce halos on edges from parallax, and some methods are more susceptible than others. Zerene's DMap algorithm is better for flowers--better preservation of colors, in particular--but is more prone to haloing that the second method, PMax, which is designed for finer detail. When I have halos, I stack with both, and then I retouch the affected edges on the DMap composite from the edges in the PMax composite. Given how deep this flower is, I had a number of edges for which this was worthwhile. Sounds complicated, I know, but once you have used it for a few hours, it's simple enough.