Another from my last DF shoot a couple of weeks ago. It yielded several good stacks but all were of this same species and most were of this same individual, who kept landing within range. I say same individual because the stigma in the front right wing is white, and on all the others I’ve photographed, all four are dark. Does anyone have any info on this?
Specific Feedback Requested
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Trying Kris’s method here:
Focus stack at 20 fps, processed in LR then Zerene Stacker. Into PS for denoise, no significant tonal tweaks or cloning.
A very nice at this blue dasher. Stacking produced a tack sharp subject and perch and I like varied colors and patterns of the soft BG. The stigmas are dark with the light one due to the underside of the stigma picking up some stray light. So everything is normal with this specimen… You could remove the debris in the lower RH corner of the perch if so desired. It does draw the eye, but not a deal breakere. Well done with a successful stack…Jim
Look at those eyes! Nice. And funny about the Kris method, aka very lazy method, of putting settings up.
And speaking of settings. You said you shot this as a bracketing session in burst mode. I’ve never tried that on my G9, but it looks possible. When you bracket in single shot mode, do you have an image count setting? Meaning it only takes that many photos in each session. When I put the G9 in burst mode, that setting for bracketing disappears and is taken over by however long I keep my finger on the button. Is that how it works with the R5? Just curious because I’ve never done bracketing in burst mode before.
Wonderful capture, Diane. What caught my attention right off is the forward position of his wings. Also, love how the diagonal lines in the OOF background, the dasher’s body and the perch in the foreground all come together very nicely.
Thanks, @Jim_Zablotny, @Kris_Smith and @linda_mellor! Jim, I debated about the debris, but it begged to stay because it picked up the tans in the DF’s body – talk about obsessing over details… Kris, when the R5 is set to focus bracketing it automatically goes to electronic shutter which gives 20 FPS. There is also a setting for the number of shots in the set, and for the focus increment. The latter is just a number, calculated depending on the aperture. I use the smallest one for this kind of shot. Would probably set a larger one for a landscape – haven’t tried that and need to experiment. When the shutter is first triggered the set number of shots will be fired, whether you hold the button down or not.
Then in LR I can do Photo > Stacking > Auto-Stack by Capture Time and set 2 seconds for Time Between Stacks and have each stack neatly tucked into its own group. (Can change this at any time in LR if needed.) So far that has worked well as I’ve never shot over 40 in a bracket and never started the next one in less than 2 seconds, due to the need to quickly manually re-refocus on the nearest part of the subject. The camera needs to be in autofocus, but since I’m in back button focus, hitting the shutter doesn’t mess up my initial focus.
Thanks for the explanation! It’s interesting to see how each camera company works the technology differently. Oh and I do the same with auto stacking in Lr. Much neater!
Diane, he sure stayed nice and still for you to get the focus stack. If I ever give focus stacking a try, I will probably have to come back to these comments and learn from what you provided here.
I love the broken perch he is on. Works nice in the frame. Nice details in the DF.
@Jim_Zablotny, thinking again about the junk on the stem in the LR, that corner did bother me even after some graduated darkening, and I think now what it needs is more darkening below the junk. I’m posting a re-do for any opinions, with a few very small areas cloned out. Did this make any difference or am I obsessing again?
