I don’t remember… but this may be my first post in Macro, certainly in NPN2.0, just can’t remember posting in years past. The main leaf is no bigger than 2 inches, 3 at the most.
Well, maybe this is the year to step out of my comfort zone. Well, I just treated myself to a new Tamron SP 90mm macro for Christmas and took it out for a test run a couple days ago. So I headed out near the end of the day in search of a subject. Wasn’t too hard to find. I live in wine growing region and there are thousands of acres of vineyards. Most all of the vines have lost there leaves, but there are still a few leaves hanging on. This possibly a Cabernet grape leaf, or pehaps Petite Sirah… The sun had just dropped behind the ridge, but there was still some gentle back light.
Didn’t put much though in to this technically, but enough that I took two images for a focus stack. There’s a number of soft spots that if I had taken my time with more frames I could get the entire thing sharp. But as it turns out I just wanted to get an image on the screen and check image sharpness. Needless to say I’m pretty happy with the early returns and look forward to shooting more macro in the near future.
I liked the details in the leaf and the various stages of decay in the leaf that is still managing to cling to the vine.
Would love any thoughts, suggestions. All comments welcome.
Lon, this is a lovely look at this grape leaf (and it’s surroundings). The main leaf and it’s stem are nicely sharp. The bits of leaf on the side work by adding context. In my opinion, letting the vine go a bit soft is appropriate to the view and it avoids needing to “fix” the stack where there are areas with both the front and back subjects sharp that you can’t get both sharp in a single frame (like the main stem/leaf areas on the left). The touch of backlit glow at the leaf/stem connection is a fine extra. I’m going to guess that your Tamron 90 is an improved design from the 1980’s & 90’s Tamron 90, which was an outstanding macro lens originally designed and manufactured by Pentax. If you’re going to do much stacking, you’ll eventually want to add software, since the stacking in Photoshop ALWAYS leaves a few soft pixels in the middle of sharp areas due to it’s stacking algorithm. Those cannot be seen at NPN sizes, but you’ll see them at 1:1 viewing on your monitor.
A great macro shot, Lon. I love the way you have that center leaf, with stem and the other leaves framing it up. The colors of the leaves this late in the season is a nice plus as well. I am just going to have to try stacking. I think the 2 image stack in this one works fine, as Mark has already said. I love everything about this shot, and wouldn’t change a thing. Congratulations on your new lens. Hopefully you will enjoy it and your exploration into the world of macro. You usually can find subjects without having to leave home, so that is always a nice plus. Looking forward to many more of your macro shots!
Thanks for your comments and response @Mark_Seaver and @Shirley_Freeman. Much appreciated. I hope to contribute more here and in Flora as well, more in 2020 (the thought anyway…)
Mark, yes it’s the later Tamron, released 2016 I believe. I’ve always liked the brand and have had good luck over the years; starting with the 300mm 2.8 back in the day when I thought I wanted to dabble in wildlife photography…
Regarding software, yes, and I did add Helicon to my sw toolbox last year. I’ve had fairly good success with stacking landscapes (those meadow grass images for eg.) With this lens now I hope to create some very detailed images using many more images to stack. More than two, like this one…
Anyway, looking forward to having even more reasons to get out and shoot!
And Shirley, that’s exactly what I hope to do. Hopefully come spring when a few things start blooming in the yard. Can’t wait!
Lon: It’s a real treat to have you posting here and I really look forward to more of your work. When I got my first real macro lens (a 100mm Minolta) it opened an entire new world of photography for me and now comprises a large majority of my work. I still have that lens and it remains one of the sharpest in my bag and is so easy to handle. I did graduate to a 200mm lens which became my photographic soul mate and lives on my camera 85% of the time but if not for that introduction to macro from the 100mm I doubt I’d even be doing much seriously with a camera. I like this image and how you handled the light. The color palette of the leaves is very pleasing. Really nice first post here and I hope to see many more. >=))>
