martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Just finished up with one of the Hand Held stacks from this weekend, 21 photos deep. As always you guys can nick pick me on this. Starting to get a little better. These were shot at F/10, 1/250-sec, Flash with DIY Diffuser. The first photo is Unedited after running thru Zerene. Second photo I cropped some of the garbage out and adjusted contrast just a hair. As you can see a few parts of the capture were in front of my beginning focus point. I really picked a deep prop to stack this time around, not intentionally as I hate stuff out of focus in front of the subject. I already deleted 2 stacks due to this. Would like to here from you other stackers as well. Thanks to William I unchecked the Full dynamic range adjustment and now all is well in my world as the stacks are coming out clean with no contrast issues. I'm thinking one of my best hand held stacks to date.
I should note, subject alive and well and released unharmed.

(Download)


(Download)

mawyatt Loc: Clearwater, Florida

Amazing handheld!! Nice image sir!!

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

Martin,
I like your idea of carrying your own background, with the lichens.... I'll have to try to incorporate this. I think all of my jumpers are on the side of a building-- which doesn't make the most "natural" backgrounds-- but hey, I live in a city.

What's the size of this jumper? Time of day? Was this early morning?

I think the stack looks pretty darn good-- and I'm still working on a strategy to do some hand-held stacks. I'm curious about your shutter duration at 1/250.... so what was your ISO? I'm wondering what the ambient exposure would have been, because what I miss in this photo, is that "wild hair-do"... on the top of the head.

Anyway, I agree that it's one of your best. Can't wait to see more of the rest. You must have 8 sets left?
Thanks, Allen

A-PeeR Loc: Houston, Texas

This is an excellent hand stack Martin! Crop is well placed, neatly removing the the OoF corners. Not that the uncropped OoF is distracting. Sorry to disappoint you, alas, I have nothing to nit-pick. Perhaps if I blow it up 400% I can find something........ ;-)

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Hey Allen, yes I upped my shutter speed as the subject was being very difficult for the longest time constantly on the move. Lighting was very low total shade and unfortunately I was not paying attention and my ISO was set on 200 and not ISO100 that I use for stacking, a rookie mistake. I had to run the finished photo thru noise reduction software because of this. I was still under half power with my flash and had plenty of room to crank it up. These are on the dark side and not as bright as I thought when viewed in the shade, another mistake. If you noticed the eyes you are missing a well light reflection in them as well another downfall to shooting in the shade. Made lots of mistakes this time around, only thing going for me was the lack of haloing this time. I'm amazed at the software and it's ability to align your shots. If I have a shot to far out of alignment I simply pull from the stack to prevent haloing and so far these are normally the first or second shot or the very last one. I pull the camera against my face, hold my breath and get er done.
Now if your jumpers are on the side of buildings it doesn't get much better than this, just set your camera flat on the building with your hand underneath to guide your camera thru the stack. Some of my best stacks were either shooting on a building or laying on the ground as I'm much more staple. Standing in front of a fence post as proven to be the most difficult as I have little, other than a stick to brace myself.

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Thank you mawyatt

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Thanks William, other than lighting this time around I'm getting better. The hairs really snap and other than a few halos from OoF forward material I be happy.

napabob Loc: Napa CA

nice job, i like em

steve1oshea Loc: Reading, England

I was reading recently to adjust aperture by 2 stop on the last image to allow a more natural progression of DOF in the final image. There is always a big jump from in-focus to out-focus so I'm going to try using this method. Has anybody tried this?

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

Excellent!

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Thanks Bob

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Hey Steve, I've read this concerning Microphotography when the guys are stacking in studio but not out in the field. I would think you have to select last photo then mouse over with cursor to save to finish stack. Still not sure how well this would work around any already fuzzy edges when the stack is not sharp from front to back. I do use parts of the first photo in the stack to blend in the far background, but not around the edges

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Thanks CountyMama

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

No I haven't-- and I haven't seen this in the stacking literature I've read, so I would like a reference. Here's one of my favorite stacks: 7 images shot at 1/40 & f/5.6-- which has become my "go to" aperture for tripod stacks. Of course, if I was hand-holding I'd probably stop down to f/8-f/11

(Download)

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

If you read thru LordV's pages prior to his new site you will find info on this procedure. I've also read this on the photomacrography.net site that the developer of Zerene software/Rik Littlefield/started.
Beautiful flower by the way. I like that you used natural light.