The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Technical Help
About This Image
Shield bug hand held, Focus stack 8 images
Hand held stack not bug
I think I’m getting better. Quite windy so waited for pause.
Feedback Requested
Getting better , tried stacking 12 images - zerene was terrible - reduced to best 8, much better, stacked , not much edit, denoise last (I know that was silly)
Lr → serene - should have used DXR PR first then Zerene
Comments and anything in the pic or my flow that I should be concentrating more on. Will try flash tomorrow
Technical Details
Camera:A7v
Lens: Fe 100mm Gm ans 2xTC
Focal length: 200
Shutter speed:1/500
Aperture: f/13
ISO:6400 Topaz Studio denoise and sharpen (mild)
Flash: No
Cool color combo and I like the side view, something not often seen with this little critter. I love shield bugs - the way they walk knocks me out. I like the textures, especially on our model - I didn’t realize how fuzzy they can be. Excellent stripes, too. Glad it sat still enough for some shots to work in the stack.
So in terms of workflow and using different apps, I do all RAW processing first including any noise reduction. Basically getting each source image ready and the best it can be. No cropping. Cropping is hell on Zerene because it makes it have to do more aligning work than if you leave cropping until last. Alignment can be a pain if there is too much movement even without a crop which is maybe why 12 didn’t work, but 8 did. I’ve had the same thing happen to me and sometimes have saved the end result, sometimes I just have to pitch all the photos and call it a failure.
Huw: Really impressed that you could get a hand held stack but clearly knowing what your camera and processing can do made an image like this possible where just a few years ago there was no way. As @Kris_Smith said marvelous color combo and for me a great BG. Superbly crafted image and congrats on the new gear. >=))>
Beautiful lighting on the flower and the bug, Huw, which would lead me to stay away from a flash, though that depends on the ambient, which was excellent here. The detail in the flower is excellent and most of the shield bug worked very well-just a layer or two that doesn’t look quite right along the abdomen. Are you shooting this in high rate burst mode?
Thanks Dennis
Medium or high - about 14 FPS
It needs to be slow enough so I can minimise the wobble - rocking inwards but consciously keeping the eye in the same place in the frame (small spot focus square I fix on eye, although obviously AF is off via back button focus)
