Help with maintaining detail in dark/white shots

[smoke665]

This is my first post here, so if I'm doing something wrong, please let me know. Experimenting with photos that include both dark vivid colors and white highlights. In this photo example, the detail on the dark petal is decent, but the white is lacking. I tried several different combinations shutter/aperture/ISO, with this being the best of the bunch. Natural light on a dark cloudy day around 4 pm in the afternoon. Pentax, 1/8 sec, F/5, 18 mm. ISO 100. Any suggestions or tips??

 

[Ysarex83 77]

Welcome to TPF.

You're not having a problem with lighting contrast -- exposure and contrast are OK here. The loss of detail you have in the whites is sharpness loss due to depth of field. You needed a smaller aperture value.

Joe

 

[480sparky38 37]

Welcome to TPF.

You're not having a problem with lighting contrast -- exposure and contrast are OK here. The loss of detail you have in the whites is sharpness loss due to depth of field. You needed a smaller aperture value.

Joe

+1. Get your ISO up to 400 or 800 and shoot at f/10 or f/14.

 

[smoke665]

Maybe I'm mistaken but I seem to get more realistic color (and detail in the dark) if I keep the ISO down, especially in the dark reds, and blues. Maybe if I went up one F stop, go with a slower shutter speed, and still maintain the slower ISO? Or would it be better to go up on both shutter speed and F stop, and add fill light? Trying to get to the sharpest image with the least amount of noise and most vibrant/realistic color.

 

[SCraig]

Why not try both methods, or for that matter a variety of different settings, and see which works best for you?

Saturation, contrast, etc. are easily modified in post processing. Loss of detail due to low depth of field is not.

 

[Vtec44]

Was there any noise correction or post process that was applied to this photo? It looks to have a lot of artifacts.

 

[smoke665]

Was there any noise correction or post process that was applied to this photo? It looks to have a lot of artifacts.

Converted from raw to jpeg, and crop. Normally use a batch process which includes some adjustment, but in this case nothing else.

 

[smoke665]

Comparing the image to the real thing just now, with a magnifying glass. The petal is covered with something similar to a fine short hair. When you back off from the petal, the ends of the hairs glow white giving the appearance of noise???

 

[480sparky38 37]

Software is getting better every day for dealing with noise. Take some time to use that function of whatever you use. Same goes for color and contrast.

That, or start focus stacking.

 

[smoke665]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Weather is supposed to be rainy/overcast on Thursday again, so hopefully can continue with project under same general conditions. Going to follow the suggestions on increasing depth of field and see where it takes me.

 

[Vtec44]

Comparing the image to the real thing just now, with a magnifying glass. The petal is covered with something similar to a fine short hair. When you back off from the petal, the ends of the hairs glow white giving the appearance of noise???

The background "noise" looks like some sort of noise reduction has been applied. The noise looks very unatrual.

 

[smoke665]

I swear it's not. Part of the "noise" is the actual detail of the petal, part of it might be grain from enlarging this small section. Again my goal is to learn where the limits are.

 

[Derrel]

Yes, if that is just a petal, then the magnification is fairly high, and f/5 is merely a moderate aperture. At higher magnifications, f/5 will leave parts of a three-dimensional object out of focus. Definitely, stopping down to a smaller aperture, like f/11 to f/13 would be a good step. You will read a lot of theoretical talk coming from internet talking heads about, "Loss of sharpness due to diffraction" at small apertures such as the f/8 to f/22 range, but the reality is that in single-shot macro work (meaning one-shot images, not multi-shot focus stacked images) depth of field almost always trumps obsessing over diffraction. How the back of the camera is aligned with the major plane of the subject also becomes a HUGE issue--and is one of the reasons tilt/shift macro lenses in the 85mm and 90mm focal lengths have been offered by Nikon and Canon for well over a decade.

Being able to tilt the lens to more closely-parallel the subject is one of the main uses for a tilt/shift lens, to more usefully "place" the plane of focus, for one-shot capture work.

Similar to the aperture theories so often discussed on-line,a few line pairs per millimeter more resolving ability at ISO 100 versus ISO 200 or 400, a little bit more noise at ISO 200 or 400 compared against ISO 100--all that is meaningless if there is visible detail that comes off looking unsharp or out of focus, or in this case, over-exposed and also out of focus. I personally think the small, white parts ARE a bit over-exposed (and they are, indeed, out of focus due to inadequately deep depth of field), and need some burning in in post to make them a bit darker.

It's pretty hard to overstate the need for SMALL apertures on close-range photos of three-dimensional objects like flowers. F/5 is just not a small enough aperture on most close-up shots, so strongly consider apertures like f/13 and f/16.

 

[smoke665]

"Derrell" thank you for your detailed reply. Your technical explanations are greatly appreciated. I still need to retake using your suggestions, but I found this one still on the SD card, that I cropped for an example. I think you're right about the small white parts being over exposed. In this one, it seems the white parts are closer to real, but the dark has lost detail which might be depth of field. What looks to be noise in the dark area is actually the fine fuzz on the petal which seems to almost have a phosphorescent quality. Pentax 1/160 sec. f/6.3, 42.5 mm ISO 400

 

[480sparky38 37]

That one seems a lot is out-of-focus.