Category Archives: Macro
How to: Candy Drops
Hey everyone,
I took this shot this last weekend and I thought I’d go through the setup and steps I took to produce it. I originally saw a shot similar to this on a photography forum called “Canon Digital Photography Forum” aka POTN which I usually browse on a daily basis.
Here’s my final image once again.
This shot is actually 3 different shots that have been merged or staked on each other. I used a process called focus stacking which I’ll explain a little later on what exactly that is. But first Let me first go over my setup for this shot.
Sorry it’s not the best quality since I had to use my phone to take the picture. I labeled the key items in the shot. I used a LumoPro LP160 flash fired at 1/2 power into the softbox. I also used the Yongnuo rf-602 trigger system to be able to fire my flash remotely.
The glass I used I took from a picture frame and treated it with Rain-x. Rain-x helped the water bead up better to get more distinct drops. I then just put it on the two chairs and tried to make it level as possible. Once level I took the spray bottle and sprayed the glass. One other thing to note that’s not included in the picture is that I ended up putting a white sheet of paper down over the black box top to make it blend a little better. I filled the bowl with Skittles Crazy Cores that I bought at the store for this shot. I chose the skittles since they had a lot of bright colors which I thought would make for a better image.
If you shoot a lot of macro shots one thing that can be hard to control is the depth of field of the shot. It was a little hard to get what I wanted in the shot in focus while keeping a nice blur to the background. So I decided to try a technique know as focus stacking. As mentioned above the picture is actually 3 different images merged together using a program called Zerene stacker. I’m currently only using the demo period of the software but I like what it was able to do.
I manually focused at the far end of the focus range and made a slight focus adjustment for each shot to get the range I wanted. Each time I made a change of focus a different part of the image was in focus. Here’s my 3 individual shots.
Shot 1:
Shot 2:
Shot 3:
I opened the resulting image in Photoshop and did a few minor changes like levels adjustments and sharpening. It was quite fun playing around to create this image and plan on trying some other items in place of the candy dish. If anyone else gives this a shot I’d love to see what you come up with. Feel free to post a link to you image in the comments.
Hope you liked it. Let me know if you have any questions.
Inspired by Northwest Dad and Hyuni’s photos which I first saw on the forum mentioned above:
www.flickr.com/photos/nwdad/4438387067/
www.flickr.com/photos/distinction/5604123456/
Year’s First Snow Fall
We had our first snow of the season a little over a week ago. I’m not a huge fan of winter/snow/cold but it can make for some unique pictures. A lot of times if you’re willing to brave the elements and get out to take shots you’ll end up with unique pictures that others aren’t willing to work to get.
I took these photos as my wife and I walked our dog. I didn’t want to have to carry all my camera gear for this little outing so I just grabbed my camera (Canon 7D) on one lens (Canon 100mm f2.8 IS Macro) and went out. This can be a challenge as your not able to switch to a different lens as you see different shots. It forces you to work within the limits of the single lens you have.
This can be a fun challenge to try and can get you to look at things in a new way. For example a lot of my shots are wide angle landscape shots. I tend to look at the big picture of a scene and by having only a macro lens I’m forced to observe the details of it. It opens up a whole new world of photography to dive into.
Another version of this challenge is to give yourself topics or themes for a photo outing. For example you can use themes like “Leaves”, “Reflections”, “Water”, or “Happiness”. As you’re out shooting try to incorporate the theme of the outing with all of the pictures you take. This type of challenge is great and you don’t need to have a fancy camera or gear to do it. It can be done with a cell phone camera if you’d like.
Granted these pictures I took probably aren’t all keepers. If you have made it this far and you’re still reading this post I’d like to know what pictures you like. I hope to use the blog section of my site to not only post things I’m working on but also to find out what everyone likes. Please feel free to leave me a comment and let me know what you think and if you have any questions about my pictures, techniques, or post processing.
Thanks for looking and till next time… ta ta