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I have been working with the Z9 in order to learn and modify my techniques. Stacking with flash was no problem, but this dahlia does not like to play nice with flash. This flower is loaded with anyhocyanin pigments that get washed out with flash. So I transported my soft box outside and diffused the natural sunlight. I could have used 3 more shots to get the very back petals sharp. I did reduce the saturation of reds and set black point in levels. The Z9 produced zero noise with the settings that I used.
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Z9 105mm f2.8 micro (1/160 sec. at f5.6, ISO 100) 16 image stack PMax, Crop for comp, Topaz DeNoise AI for sharpening, red saturation reduced…Jim
Wow, it’s Dahlia time already? I love this image, Jim. The black background is perfect. And the focus stack is great too. Nicely done.
The farm where I used to go for Dahlia shoots is now keeping everyone out till 9am, so I think I will have to resort to cut flowers and studio shots.
Cheers,
David
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Thank you @David_Bostock. Yes it is that time of the year. My wife has about 60 varieties and her extras have been planted in the vegetable garden. Early August is the best time for dahlia variety and some of them will get photographed…Jim
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Just beautiful, Jim. I haven’t tried the stacking yet. Been too breezy outside, so studio shots would be it. Probably will have to buy some cut flowers to try my hand at it. I really like the color of the flower against the black. Firepot is a good name, as it reminds me of flames. Great shot.
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Drop-dead gorgeous!! I don’t mind the softer back petals – they help emphasize the ones up front. Beautiful composition, detail, color and tonalities. The diffused light is wonderful!
I’m curious about the flash issues. As far as I know, flashes are set for a daylight WB and I’m curious why flash would cause color issues with the red-purple-blue spectrum of anthocyanins. My first guess would be an issue with with a color profile. Or the diffused outdoor light could have a slightly different WB due to the diffusion material. Might be helpful to compare a neutral gray card in both lighting situations and see if there is a difference, and see how a WB correction in raw looks with both.
For taming reds, have you compared desaturation to playing with Selective Color? This is a very old tutorial but may be worth a look:
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Gorgeous flower Jim. I also agree that the soft petals aren’t an issue; my eye is much more forgiving of softness farther from the camera if the closer areas are in focus. Here, the softness helps emphasize how good the in-focus areas are. Interesting about the pigments and flash photographs; I’ve never heard of that.
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Thank you @Diane_Miller , @John_Williams , and @Shirley_Freeman . @Diane_Miller , the flash associated issue may actually be easily explained with how light passes through a color filter. The red petals were transmitting red light through them and this swamped out the other colors like yellow and violet. Each petal was filtering out all the wavelengths except red. With natural lighting, the light source was more even and the shadows were more strongly lit revealing the yellow at the base of the petals…Jim
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Yes, transmitted light has such marvelous color compared to reflected wavelengths. Remember the look of color transparencies on a light box vs. the look of the prints? Or stained glass…
I’m on my iPhone on the road (waiting for our scallop omelets with fried polenta) and havent read back through the thread so may be repeating what has already been said, but it would be interesting to layer the best parts of an exposure done with the best lighting with and without flash. Easy to do these days!
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