Indian pipe on moss - what could be better? Luckily this is in the backyard so I could experiment a bit and I like this one for its warmth and the bit of drama the off-camera light source created. It was in open shade so there wasn’t a lot of contour because of the flat light. It’s about 1 1/4 inches high at this point. I have another series of shots without the light if you’d like a comparison view. I just need to process and stack them.
Specific Feedback Requested
Overall impressions and ideas for improvement welcome. The flower probably still looks like this so I can reshoot, too.
Technical Details
Camera on Platypod w/LED panel on Gorilla Pod to the left out of frame. It was at about 60% strength.
Camera focus bracketing using the 0/+ method and 4-step increments - two sessions of 25 with different starting points.
36 images (or maybe 38?) out of 50 used to get a DMax stack in Zerene. Retouched.
Lr to process the 36 the same which was to decrease highlights and blacks, increase whites and shadows. Some texture, clarity & sharpening then into Zerene. The final TIF into Photoshop for some distraction removal and some light sculpting using the TK8 panel luminosity masking and some dodging and burning.
This time no LED panel and a 22 image stack using two sessions of 11 with 0/-/+ method. Lots of retouching in Zerene and some work in Photoshop to sculpt the light and remove some distractions.
Kris, the lighting is so natural looking to me, if you hadn’t told us and showed us your setup I sure would have never known. I will have to keep this setup in mind. The subjects are really nice finds. I love the title for that first one, it does look like ears on it listening for some cue or direction. Excellent!
This looks like a submarine Periscope. Thanks for taking the time to show us the set up you out together. Well done. And a good review on the Pods. The lighting looks very natural, almost like the little flower is throwing a spot light on to the moss. I like the focus stack. It was well done and the blurry OOF background looks nice. Thanks for sharing this one, Kris!
How wonderful to have Indian Pipe in your backyard! You might consider cropping in a little closer to feature the flower. Also, using content aware spotting, you could remove some of the brown blemishes to clean it up a bit.
Thanks @Shirley_Freeman, @David_Haynes & @Don_Jacobson - they are my favorite wildflower and I cannot resist them pretty much any time I come across them. In moss though…puh-leez!
It’s another big stack. I prefer to leave the blemishes because it’s part of their story - when touched they oxidize and turn this color; even pushing up through soil can do it.
As a series this is fascinating. Your set up is impressive. It’s cool that it’s in your backyard so you can keep going back. Keep us posted! I’d love to see what happens when the seed pod opens.
Thanks @Bonnie_Lampley - I just went and shot it again a minute ago. Will process either tonight or tomorrow. It’s shrunk quite a bit and is quite brown and dry. Looks like there might be an opening in the seed pod, but it’s hard to tell.
I missed this completely first time around – glad I got to see it now – what a fascinating series! The lighting, the various views, and the mossy BG – fantastic, all! Wonderful stacking!
Thanks @Diane_Miller - all our new members and activity mean stuff falls through the cracks more, so I’m probably missing stuff, too.
Glad you like it - if the photos I took today don’t show the pod opening I’ll post more. Plus one with a bit of snow will be fun, too. We usually get a dusting or two in October so it won’t be long.
Great series Kristen. I really like your foreground stacking and letting the background go. I haven’t yet tried much stacking in the field only inside in various setups. I’m also fascinated with your friendly platypus. Looks like it is just the thing compared with the long-legged tripods. Your lighting is spot-on to me although the greens seem a wee bit saturated.
Thanks @Phil_G - for subjects like this that stand alone in a somewhat blank field, I usually shoot with a fairly wide aperture to preserve that OOF background as much as I can. Because the lens I use is very sharp even fairly wide and I do a lot of stacking, I know I’ll have critical sharpness where I need it and the resulting OOF areas fore and aft please me quite a bit. A while back I started a discussion about stacking here if you want to check it out.
The Platypod is a terrific little piece of kit, although I admit that some of these were done with the tripod. I’m lazy and don’t take my ballhead off the legs as much as I should. Take yesterday for example, I think I could have used the small footprint of the Platypod to make some of my compositions work better. And in my own backyard, too. No excuse.
Thanks for that. I guess muy main problem with field stacking is that I need to carry a tripod! Partly laziness but also I find that if I spend a lot of time on one image I seem to lose the initial emotion of (feeling for) the scene and it then becomes sort of too technical.
I do studio stacking and a few years ago built up a rig for general and also higher magnification stacking using my Nikon that I kept after moving into m4/3. I’m a bit reluctant to post any high magnification images as I haven 't seen any of that sort work appear in the short time since I have joined.
Yeah, handheld isn’t so great for stacking, although I think if a camera can do bracketing in burst mode, it might be viable. It is technical, yes, but it allows me time to get close and really study my subject and I like that aspect of it. The small things I stack usually require some figuring out before I can get set up with a composition. Then there is the clean up I’ll do as well, sometimes with tweezers. That gives me time up close and personal as well, so I find it valuable in both the finished product and in the time with the actual subject; getting to really see it.
And who cares if no one else does high-mag macro? Post it! I’ve been eyeing a set of extension tubes for my system lens. I haven’t used any since switching from a 35mm legacy Olympus lens I shot with for a decade. I’m also excited at the prospect of an OM Systems 90mm macro that appears to officially in the pipeline. Native it’s supposed to do 2:1 and of course more with tubes and/or teleconverters. Drool.
I forgot I took this shot, but in going through my backlog I found it and processed the stack. It’s snowing right now so I think I’ll go out to see if the pod has split open. Indian Pipe in snow is a favorite, too.
Glad I found this - missed it originally as I’ve been busy w/work. I really like the original and I’ve seen Indian Pipe in moss too, but only in Shenandoah and Great Smokies NP. Great to have it so accessible!
I agree the lighting looks very natural and the colors are very good. I never noticed the warmish color in the flower before - I really like that.
