moss sporophytes

[DanK]

Went out in a drizzle this morning to experiment with photographing the sporophytes of a species of moss that we have growing on a stone wall. The sporophytes are the brown structures, and while I haven't measured, my recollection is that they are from a few mm to perhaps 1 cm.

I got as far as making a composite (focus stacking) and doing some very basic editing, but I'm not sure whether this has potential. It's unavoidably very busy and lacks a central focus, other than the triangular shape. All thoughts and suggestions about editing are welcome. If I decide it's worthwhile, I'll come back to it after a few days.

[billtils]

Been there (and got nowhere) Dan. The best I can offer is crop about a third off the bottom to give a diagonal rising from left to right.

[Round Tuit]

You have too many things in the frame beside the sporophytes. If you eliminate everything that isn't sporophyte; you end up with a single subject which is easy to explore visually.

[DanK]

thanks. I agree with you both, except that I think I would go further than you suggested, Andre. I think I should pick an area with fewer and then get much closer. I can get up to perhaps 2:1 with my equipment, but the location of this stuff, at the edge of a wall, makes it difficult. I can't get closer with a tripod on the ground, and there isn't a good place to invert the cente rpost at the top. I'll fiddle.

This was taken with an EF 100mm macro, a 12mm extension to allow a TC to fit, and a 1.4x telextender. I can add more extension.

I did have one glitch. I took three series. The first two I took by focusing on the near edge manually and letting the camera do focus bracketing (but not compositing). When I tried to do the same with this one, the camera refused to do the bracketing, making an odd sound as if the shutter opened twice. (with the R6 II, the shutter should open only once because the camera automatically uses a fully electronic shutter when focus bracketing.) I switched to an RF lens and a different setting, and the bracketing worked fine. So I'm guessing that the combination of a relatively slow focusing EF lens, combined with the EF=>RF adapter, the tube, and the TC, interfered with the focus-bracketing algorithm. I did this one by hand.

[Round Tuit]

...I think I should pick an area with fewer and then get much closer...

I will be curious to see the result. Getting much closer will work well up to a point. If you go too far though, you risk reintroducing confusion and distracting elements.