OK here’s a redo with some changes - most obviously the background. It’s the lawn. I also put the bark on a different stick instead of resting it directly on a stone. This meant the angle is a little different. Plus there’s more lichen on the other stick!
Another flake of bark with an incredible little scene on it. It reminds me of a nub of coral in a warm sea somewhere. It has what I think is common antler lichen on the right and some patches of poplar sunburst lichen on both ends. IRL it’s about 1 inch long (I thought it was a little longer, but it’s not).
Specific Feedback Requested
Is the background too distracting? I’m messing with retouching methods and apertures. As you’ve probably figured out, this is not where it fell to earth, rather a deliberate placement in the rocks next to my garage. How does the stack look? I did my best with retouching.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Lumix G9
Leica 45mm f/2 macro
f/5 | 1/30 sec | ISO 200 | +1/3 stop
Tripod
25-exposure stack, DMap
Basic processing in Lr for the usual adjustments. Zerene for the stack and heavy retouching in the background and some in the structures themselves. I missed the focus on a tiny bit of the yellow lichen on the left, but it doesn’t bother me enough to go and take another series. I could though since I saved this bit of bark in a protected spot. Ps to fix a bit of haloing as best I could with clone stamping.
This looks like our local tidepools in Southern California. Well seen Kristen. I love all of the colors. The background is a little distracting but not that much really. It looks like you were shooting wide open so not much more you could have done. You might burn down the URC where the three whitish rocks are as those really stand out but otherwise, you have an incredible little macro scene here.
One other thought. Could you have photographed the subject in situ? The rocks have very sharp edges that are counter to the subtle mosaic of the subject.
Kris, that looks like another nice find for you. Amazing what nature holds even in the tiny things in life. I can’t help you on the stacking, I will let those that are experienced speak to that. The background is a bit distracting. Maybe if this scene is still available, you can find a better place to pose it to remove the rock and the background issues. I love the mix of colors and shapes.
I love these little micro-worlds. This is a particularly diverse one. The bark and growth is wonderful. I think the back ground may be a little distracting. It’s rather bright and the colors compete. Don’t want anything to distract from the fantastic bark.
Thanks everyone. I can re-do this no problem. I’ll put it on a more neutral space and see how it goes. We have some big rocks by the garage that slope down next to the stairs (our house is on a hill) and that might work to isolate this better.
I’m glad you like these tiny worlds. Macro has been my passion for over a decade, but I’ve always used a manual legacy lens from 35mm days. Now I have a dedicated system lens it’s opened new worlds and techniques.
The technical quality of your work has certainly improved a lot compared to the first stacks I saw. Top-notch retouching. This is a very nice piece of bark as well, with lots of texture and awesome colors, but the scene feels a bit staged to me taking away a little bit of wonder. A more natural placement and perhaps also a cleaner background would lift this even higher I think.
I put another shot in the OP. This one done today. It’s another DMap, but a 31 image stack. The colors are richer here because I think the white balance was better. I like the aspect of the first one though so I may have to do another where it isn’t placed on another stick. Having it free allowed it to bend differently.
Another version which might be the best, but I still think the background should be darker. I tried one, but the clouds didn’t last and blew my series so I deleted them. Looks pretty cloudy today though so I might give it a go if it isn’t too windy. This bit of bark gets moved by a breeze easily.
This one is a 31-image stack and I think it’s my best retouching job yet. DMax base image with a few touches of a PMax version to fill in details. Source images for background smoothing.
Yup! It looks great with a more natural setting, not that rocks aren’t realistic. The background is an individual call. It seems fine for me, but others or you might like it darker.
Let me ask a really dumb question if you don’t mind.
I’m familiar with stacking an image to get a sharp focus from front to back. What I don’t understand is the need for a 31 exposure stack.
99% of my floral portraits are one exposure, with the lens stopped down to f22. I know that at f8 is the lens’s sweet spot, but I’ve never felt that f22 is detrimental. In addition, a little bit of soft focus provides some depth.
I see others stacking, and I’m just curious about the need for so many images in a stack.
Thanks Paul. I’m glad it works better. I like the green, too, but think it competes too much for attention with the colors in the lichen.
Not a dumb question. Stacking is a weird technique and so full of variables it’s crazy.
I did this many because 21 images left some of the farthest parts of the lichen out of focus. Why 21 and 31 - because I’m lazy. The default image count is 11 so it’s easiest to up by 10.
Leaving the bg very smooth is important sometimes so I shoot nearly wide open (f/5 works pretty well most of the time). The macro lens I use is very sharp in almost all the aperture range so I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing anything. When you use a wider aperture your DOF is shallower and so you need to take more images. Also I’m using a +3 step which is the distance the camera places between focused images. The higher the number the more distance between focus points. With tiny things like this I find that +3 or +4 gives me sufficient overlap. I could experiment with increasing it to +5 or 6 and using a smaller aperture, maybe I wouldn’t need as many images to get it all sharp. Trial and error! So glad it’s only 1s and 0s.
When I do stacking and flowers I close down for more DOF per shot and I take fewer, usually by hand instead of using focus bracketing because I need to shoot between breezes.
Thank you! I’m lazy, and making that many exposures with a manual focus lens handheld and waiting for the flash units to fully power up while subjects are waving in the wind, would test my patience.
I have used stacking for studio images, and the camera is on a tripod, but even then, two or three are sufficient.
Last comment.
Have you rotated the photo to vertical? It’s interesting.
Ha! I know what you mean. For 10+ years I used a legacy 35mm macro lens on my digital cameras. It’s probably the last lens I’d part with even now, but it is manual and time consuming to do any focus bracketing. I don’t have rails so I’d be just rotating the focus ring and bah…I just went with single images and left it at that. But I was literally using the lens to death. Eventually the aperture ring locked up and I sent it into the ONE guy who specializes in OM Zuiko lenses. He said he could adjust the ring to function, but that there wasn’t any more metal for him to smooth down and there are no parts to replace it with so the next time it locked it would be toast. That’s when I decided to get a system macro. Now I can do automated focus bracketing with it and handholding is cake.
Love that second redo with the tan background.
In the first redo the green grass was a little bit shocking and pulled too much attention away from the min subject.
Now you did it! The second rework is excellent. Superb technical quality in the stack and retouching as well. Very well done. The tan is a much better match than the angry bright green, and there is plenty of amazing detail and color.
If I were to change anything, and this certainly is a minor detail, it might be the lighting. It looks like it was shot in harsh light creating a rather gritty texture in the lichen and moss. A more diffused lighting scenario (overcast day, shadow, or perhaps even a portable diffuser) might produce a bit softer feel over all, but that is definitely a matter of taste what is best.
All in all a great job here. So nice to see you progress
Kris, I like your second redo the best too. The background isn’t competing or distracting in anyway, and makes the subject stand out nicely. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on the stacking. I admire each one of you on here, and may give it a try some day. I would image it would be difficult if not impossible if there is any movement (wind, living creature, etc.) in the scene. Patience might be one of the most needed in the area of stacking.
Thanks Ingemar. I shot this in the open on a cloudy day, but it wasn’t overcast so it wasn’t as even as it could have been. It wasn’t direct sun, but it wasn’t full shade either. Finding a place to put the stick where I could line up on it the way I needed to was a challenge, but I can certainly try again.
Thanks Shirley. A bit of movement is something most stacking softwares can deal with. They align and then stack. Mark’s stacked shot of a dragonfly emerging is a good example of software overcoming slight movement. And he didn’t take dozens of images either. The more you take, the more any movement becomes exaggerated or a problem. But perfect stillness is the best if you can do it. That’s why I try to work on days of calm and clouds. I’ve been able to do a stack on moths when they’re roosting and that’s worked so far. Anything lively is impossible.
