This was shot indoors only because we haven’t seen the sun in a few days, I prefer natural light with either shade or a diffuser.
Even with the sun, I still still often use a remote flash with a flash diffuser to keep ISO down and for fill light.
I used some evergreen as the BG on this one just for color and a hint of some sort of environment. I had to play around with the placement of the flash to keep the BG evergreen dark enough.
I’m still testing the new macro lens for DOF and flash settings. I think I’m getting fairly comfortable with it meaning I shouldn’t have to fumble around too much when it comes time for a shot of a butterfly or a honey bee.
Specific Feedback Requested
Any and all feedback is appreciated.
I’m wondering about the crop and the overall look.
Are the whites too hot in some areas?
Technical Details
Sony A7R IV, 90mm macro, 1/250s, f18, ISO 64, shot at 1:2 magnification, cropped to 1:1 magnification (50% crop), Remote flash w/6x9 diffuser w/manual setting @ 7.5, standard adjustments in ACR, no masks except for removal of one very small hot spot, sharpened slightly using unsharp mask, slight amount of texture, clarity and dehaze.
Other than what was just mentioned, it’s pretty close to as shot.
The Goldenrod that’s shown in the image is about 1 inch or 25mm long.
Merv, I wouldn’t have known it was taken indoors if you hadn’t told us. The lighting looks good, I think. I’m just enjoying all the little hairy seed heads. Nice composition. It looks like you have got that macro lens working well for you. I like this.
I can’t help but wonder about the color banding in the dark greens in the BG.
I was just looking at the PS version before converting it to jpeg and there is no banding, could it be just from compressing it to jpeg?
Anyway, thanks again, Shirley! Much appreciated!
Oh, did you happen to look at which version your Sigma 150-600 lens is? Contemporary or Sports?
No problem if you don’t have time.
The image quality from your shots using that lens are great!
Goldenrod is a lot more interesting after it’s gone to seed. I like the your composition and lighting. I’m looking at your photo on my laptop and it looks like you have good focus through the depth of the photo.
I have the same problem with color banding in the BG you mentioned. I found that if I export the PSD file to JPEG from Bridge the banding either goes away or is at least reduced. I just happened to stumble on this solution. It makes no sense as to why it works better. Hope that helps with your banding.
Thanks David
It’s almost all the way through, probably about 80% but at least it reaches the most important parts in my opinion.
The tests that I’m doing are for a quick reference sheet of sorts, for example: 1:2 magnification equals 1/4 inch DOF at f16, 3/8 inch at f22 ad so on. It’s just a quick way to go after a shot of something that may not hang around long, hopefully I can memorize the most used parts
Thanks for the tip, David! I will give that a try!
I appreciate it and I appreciate the comments on the Goldenrod image.
Merv, my old eyes can’t see the BG well enough to see banding!
Yes, I have the Contemporary lens, and I really like it a lot. Not all that heavy considering it extends from 150 - 600 mm. If you need that much reach, I recommend it. I used to have the 100-400 mm lens, and after I bought this one, I found myself just not using the 100-400 and so I sold it this year.
Lovely detail on a very interesting subject! I love the subtle variation in brightness int he various areas of the branch, but my eye goes to the brightest area on the left edge. I think that area could be burned down just a bit to give more prominence to the others.
Odd about the posterization. It doesn’t show for me on the forum, but if I download the image and open it in PS (converting it to my working space of AdobeRGB to get an accurate histogram) then I see some large BG areas that are darker with sharp edges. It’s even odder that converting from Bridge doesn’t show them – would be interesting to know what it uses for different settings.
A possible fix is to do all the darkening in the raw stage where you have more tonal overhead. Even coming into PS as 16 bits limits the number of levels you have to expand or compress tonal values. In reality, you’re moving into a 16 bit container but it actually only contains the bit level of the capture, which would be 14 for most new cameras and 12 for older ones.
Yeah, I’m right there with ya on that as well! I have to get close and use reading glasses to boot.
Thank you so much, Shirley!
I think the contemporary version would suit me and it’s ca $450 cheaper (with the purchase of an adapter). I really only need one for getting shots of the grandkids at the school gym and an occasional wildlife shot.
Of course I could also use it for BF shots but I still think the contemporary version will do just fine.
Thanks again, Shirley! I really appreciate you taking the time to provide that answer for me, it really helped
Hi Diane,
Thank you for the feedback! I will see what it looks like with that area burned in a little, it’s a little hairier in that spot.
Yeah, I always shoot RAW uncompressed +JPEG and with a 60MP sensor, the file size averages 120MB, even the JPEG can get as high as 50MB. My computer can handle it fine but wow, what a large file.
I have the camera set to Adobe RGB color space so it matches Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).
I always preview images in JPEG but the images I decide to work on are always opened in ACR and that’s where I do all of my adjustments before going in PS.
If I export the Goldenrod image at 7 for image quality when compressing into a JPEG, there’s no banding (or very little), image quality level 6 however, shows banding.
I think I have figured out what happened on this one, I believe I pushed the blacks and the shadows down just a bit too far (about -15 on each), and the image was already at the black side of the histogram from the start.
I tried it again with about -5 on each and banding wasn’t an issue anymore when I exported it to JPEG at quality level 6.
I think the lesson here for me is to be more mindful of the histogram, it’s there for a good reason, right
And you’re right, my camera records at 14 bits so there is a 2 bit delta there.
I really appreciate you taking the time to help me figure out what it could have been!
Nobody in the 60s or 70s would have ever thought that photography would have gone from the simple art of film processing to what we use now.
Thanks again for the help and the kind words on the Goldenrod image.
This is a fine look at this goldenrod seed head. Yes, goldenrod takes on some great shapes in the winter and this shows that off well. I don’t see any banding, even at the largest view. I would prefer a bit more brightness in the background as it’s showing a nearly uniform black with a couple of faint streaks of green, making this a bit stark, but that’s a personal choice.
Hi Mark,
The fact that some see the banding while others do not makes me suspicious about the quality of my monitors, they are cheap and old, one is analog but both need to be replaced, that’s next on the list. I need to let my budget recover from the investment of the camera and lenses first.
I agree with the BG brightness and the starkness comment, I just uploaded a rework showing the BG with the shadows and blacks bumped back up, now the BG looks pretty close to the raw, unedited image.
Strange thing, when I viewed it in the EVF, it looked right but for some reason I made it darker in post, not sure why I did that (the EVF and the computer monitors match pretty close).
Thanks, Mark for taking the time to comment on how you see it and for the encouraging words!
