Violet. And Yellow.

[480sparky40 40]

Todays' macro.

 

[Joel_W]

Another outstanding macro floral. I really like the close crop, and the centering of the flower really works. Off centering it would just add needless black space. As before, exposure, and DOF is just dead on.

 

[Judobreaker]

Define centering...
The midpoint of the flower seems to be way above center to me. ^^

 

[Joel_W]

Define centering...
The midpoint of the flower seems to be way above center to me. ^^

In this case I was referring not to the vertical plane, but rather the horizontal plane.

 

[Bynx]

Gorgeous shot sparky. Im just getting into macro recently. But Im doing reverse lens method. Im getting very very shallow depth of field. My question is, is your flower shot here actually macro photography or just close-up? To me macro would be showing only a small portion of the petal instead of the whole flower composition.

 

[480sparky40 40]

Gorgeous shot sparky. Im just getting into macro recently. But Im doing reverse lens method. Im getting very very shallow depth of field.

So am I. That's why I do focus stacks.

My question is, is your flower shot here actually macro photography or just close-up? To me macro would be showing only a small portion of the petal instead of the whole flower composition.

This was a very small flower to begin with... about the size of a dime. Yet a tulip petal can be the size of a credit card. So I don't use the size of the subject to define 'macro' or 'close-up'. As there's no official definition, I would use the two terms interchangeably.

 

[Bynx]

Oh wow. So this flower has been focus stacked? Ive tried that a couple times and have Helicon Focus. Ive just purchased a focus rail by Manfrotto. Its a 454. It is ok for single shot focus, but is lousy for trying to do focus stacking. The image moves around a lot as you go from one focus spot to another.

 

[480sparky40 40]

Oh wow. So this flower has been focus stacked?

Yep. 8 frames.

Ive tried that a couple times and have Helicon Focus. Ive just purchased a focus rail by Manfrotto. Its a 454. It is ok for single shot focus, but is lousy for trying to do focus stacking. The image moves around a lot as you go from one focus spot to another.

I purchased a 4-way focus rail by Fotomate (a 'generic' brand) off ebay for $40, and use free software (CombineZM).

A trick I use when taking the frames is to locate on the rail where my focus point is at the closest part of the flower, back the camera up from than point, then bring it back forward to the original starting point. I then start taking my frames, moving the camera in the same direction. This reduces camera movement by moviing the rail in one direction only... not going back & forth, but forward, towards the subject, for all the frames.

 

[Bynx]

Ive had some luck with focus stacking but just by moving the focus ring on the camera. Great job on that flower.