macro flower shots - spring is here!

[rob marshall]

All shot with Canon 5D MkII, and Sigma 105mm. All shots are stacked and blended in CS5 - between 6 and 14 shots each. Studio flash lighting.

C+C welcome.

[Wirefox]

Rob

All superb as per usually but Tulip 2 takes the gold. There is something about those clean lines that just oozes quality.

PS I was very disappointed that you did not wade into my self portraits. I was looking forward to some of that razor wit

[Katy Noelle]

They're all so beautiful! The "lily #2" is my favorite - the colors are so soft ! The lilies, in particular, look like they were taken with natural lighting - not studio lighting. (And....is that a Ty Nant water bottle? That would be a funny coincidence if it were because that was the only thing that I could find to put my orchids in that wouldn't tip over. The blue is really, really lovely with the magenta spray but I don't know how to get a good capture of it without the windows reflecting in it.) It looks like spring in Wales - it's still the depths of winter, here.

[GeorgeM]

Tulip #2!!!!!

[Camellia]

Tulip #1 for me - beautiful colour. Lily overhead has great movement to it.

Nice work again Rob!

R

[rob marshall]

They're all so beautiful! The "lily #2" is my favorite - the colors are so soft ! The lilies, in particular, look like they were taken with natural lighting - not studio lighting.

The lighting set-up (mine was quite cheap) makes all the difference. The total bill for the flowers in these shots was £12.

(And....is that a Ty Nant water bottle? That would be a funny coincidence if it were because that was the only thing that I could find to put my orchids in that wouldn't tip over. The blue is really, really lovely with the magenta spray but I don't know how to get a good capture of it without the windows reflecting in it.

No, not Ty Nant - although it's made quite close to where I live. Here's an old Ty Nant shot of mine...

[MiniChris]

I think the blue is a little distracting in the two lily shots, but I would hang them on a wall anyway..all are good and not one more than its neighbor. Good shooting!

[Antonio Correia]

All shot with Canon 5D MkII, and Sigma 105mm. All shots are stacked and blended in CS5 - between 6 and 14 shots each. Studio flash lighting.
C+C welcome.
...

This lily overhead is the best for me
In fact, I have never tried this stacked and blended procedure... It looks fantastic indeed.

[rob marshall]

This lily overhead is the best for me
In fact, I have never tried this stacked and blended procedure... It looks fantastic indeed.

If you have CS4/5 it's very easy. You can also use Helicon software, which is quite cheap (and probably slightly better at stacking than Photoshop). For the Lily shot I used a 21mm ext tube on the 105mm macro lens. The width of the flower you see in the shot was 70mm, so on my 5D (35mm) that's pretty close.

Helicon site http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconfocus.html

here is the procedure in CS for stacking

1. Load your RAW files to CS RAW edit (ACR) and make RAW edit changes.
2. Select them all, and hit 'synchronize' then open the images in CS
3. Don't need to save them, just go to FILE > SCRIPTS > LOAD FILES INTO STACK
4. When the dialogue box appears make sure you check the 'Attempt to automatically Align Source Images' box... and then continue.
5. Go to the layers palette and select all the layers (Press CTRL and click each layer or Select=>All layers) then go to Edit/Auto-Blend Layers (tick the box that says 'stack images').
6. Save your blended image, then cancel all of the RAWs you imported into CS (the actual RAW files will be saved with the changes you applied to them).
7. Finish editing the blended shot in CS.

[Katy Noelle]

No, not Ty Nant - although it's made quite close to where I live. Here's an old Ty Nant shot of mine...

Oh, this is great, too! The blue and the shape is beautiful. The Ty Nant bottle that I have is just so gorgeous that I couldn't throw it away. I think that I've had it for twenty years, now. But, that blue is why it's so beautiful next to the orchids and in this photo, too - the colors of the fire and, in my case, the orchids just "ping" next to each other.

I've been so frustrated with everything that I've been doing, lately, but, I still have the camera glued to my hand because of the 365. This encourages me, though. I think that I need to just go back, tomorrow, and get a photo of the orchid in the bottle where it sits. (Either that or I need chocolate but I'm not sure if I want to take pictures of it or eat it.)

[rob marshall]

Oh, this is great, too!
(Either that or I need chocolate but I'm not sure if I want to take pictures of it or eat it.)

As they say... you can't eat the view. Unless you live in Wales, that is.

[Katy Noelle]

As they say... you can't eat the view. Unless you live in Wales, that is.

Wales is made of chocolate? Why didn't you tell me that before?!

[Antonio Correia]

@ Rob
Thank you Rob. I am going to try and I will post
I think I will do it with fruits.