Western Forktail up close, 6 image stack

[Dan Brown]

This is a Western Forktail, 6 image stack. Captured with a macro-stand mounted Nikon D200, 200mm f4 Micro Nikor with a reversed Nikor 50mm f1.8 mounted on the front, f32, 1/250sec, mirror locked up, TTL flash with Nikon SB800, exp comp -2.0, BG is blue painters tape! Images PP in CS3, combined with CompineZM.

[Ed Vatza]

He needs a shave! :D Excellent techniques and detail, Dan. I find these kinds of images very difficult to critique because it is much more detail than I personally have a desire to see and its just not my thing.

I had this discussion with a colleague who wants to get into macro and keeps say he wants to be able to get so close that he can look up a mosquito's backside. I told him, he can do it with a MPE-65 or a set up like you used but I keep wondering why? I guess it just falls into the different strokes for different folks category. ;)

Nice job though!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Dan, very nice job, Well done on the focus area and BG color looks great.

[Julie Kenward]

Painter's tape? Nice one! Very inventive!!! Great detail on this. I like seeing the insects in great detail but they do tend to give me the heebie jeebies. :eek::D:eek:

[Alfred Forns]

Excellent Dan !!! Very appealing form every angle and high impact !!!

For all that want to try these extreme magnification images there will be a steep learning curve but will be fun. I used a MPE-65 for a while and it took a while getting used to it.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Unbelievable detail and the eyes are aweome. Great capture Dan !!!

[Gus Cobos]

Congratulations Dan. I like the up close and in your face look...:eek::D Excellent image, great depyh of field, with razor sharp details...good job...looking foward to your next creation...:cool:

[Amy DeStefanis]

Wow Dan, you're really getting into this! I'm still bewildered by it all. I'm still stuck at the mechanics behind "getting your subject to be still".... I guess that's why this technique is so frequently done on bugs.... ?? Now I know what Al was saying about using this technique on a complicated flower.... I'm not sure I'll figure it out before my Siam Tulip is finished blooming! :)

Amy

[Dan Brown]

Thanks all for the nice comments. This "stacking" is fun and "a box O chocolates". I am by no means an expert at this, many of my stacks are failures, but I have learned a few things recently.

Amy, the trick is to collect "recently deceased" insects that are in good shape and freeze them until you are ready to shoot. This "stacking" technique seems to be easier and more successful on bigger subjects like your flower. Leave a lot of room around your flower if you can and before you run the stack, touch up the images, especially remove dust spots produced by your cameras sensor. These spots turn into a line of spots on the final product which can be a little harder to remove. Dan

[Amy DeStefanis]

....collect "recently deceased" insects that are in good shape and freeze them

I'm trying to picture my husband's reaction to that one....

Ooooh - wish I'd known about this when I was in college. My room mate and I caught a rat in a glue trap, and then didn't know what to do with him - he was alive, and standing there in the glue.... Our neighbor "Wind" - very earthy guy - decided the most humane thing was to put him in the freezer. Weeks later at a party at our neighbors', we went looking for ice.... THAT would have been a stack!!!

:eek:

Amy

[Jody Melanson]

Nice job, Dan. :)

[Dan Brown]

Thanks O master Melanson!!

Amy, here's a heavily cropped 6X stack of the Forktail's wing tip showing the pterostigma, the dark window at the tip of most odonates wings. In the circle is a group of sensor dust spots that I missed before running the stack. I see 7 of them and they look like a bug themselves.

Dan

http://naturestoc.smugmug.com/