Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

This is a strange picture, to my way of thinking. Stranger yet is the way it was made. This is nearly straight from the camera. A slight bit of tone mapping and some sharpening, but otherwise it is what the camera saw, with nothing significant added or removed. The full Exif data is attached too.

If anyone is interested I'll be happy to post more information and pictures on what it is and the rather complex and unusual camera setup used to photograph it.

Frank2013 Loc: San Antonio, TX. & Milwaukee, WI.

Okay Floyd I'll bite....what is so strange and how was it taken? It appears to me to be an orange pepper.

Pierre H.J. Dumais Loc: Mississippi Mills, Ont.

OK Floyd, I give up! What is it?

Pierre

sundar Loc: Charlotte, NC

While I am inclined to go with Frank, I am certainly interested to know more

Erik_H Loc: Denham Springs, Louisiana

Looks like a habenero pepper.

Ed Loc: Massachusetts

Nicely done, looks like your shooting upward to the sky with the clouds to camera left, on the surface it does look like a pepper, curious to find out what it is and how it was shot.

Also not sure if you picked up on it and if it really matters but it appears that your camera sensor is in need of cleaning, I point out specs visible in attached image. If it isn't of concern to you sorry for pointing it out, just an observation.

Nicely done, can you share how and what you did.

Thanks

Billyspad Loc: The Philippines

let me guess its a molten sex toy. Happens with the ones made in China. Cheap plastics ya know.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Interesting set of comments, and while Frank's "orange pepper" is close enough for government work, Erik absolutely nailed it.

That's a cute little habanero pepper. Hot and tasty.

That one is about 1 inch high and about 1 inch wide at the angle photographed. The magnification is right at 1.5:1, and it was shot with a Vivitar Series 1 version of the wonderful Kino Precision Optical 105mm f/2.8 (the same lens as the Lester A. Dine 105mm f/2.8). I think that shot was at f/11, which is why the dust spots are showing up.

I used a new lighting system that has just been added to my macro bench. It's a Paul C. Buff White Lightning Ultra 1200 strobe with a 3rd party snoot that has been modified to couple light to a dozen fiber optic light guide cables. This shot used 6 different fiber guides, with 4 of them on the pepper and 2 on the background. The blue is a sheet of colored plastic.

Here is a picture of the macro bench with the pepper.
Addition of the fiber guides has made a huge difference in how interesting it is to shoot macros. This is actually just a starting point on a larger project though, as what I am most interested in is a "portable" version of the lighting system to use this summer for field work. That's "Army portable", as in hauled around on a 4-wheel ATV.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

The camera setup is more abstract than the abstract !!

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

I agree that it is strange picture. The colors are rather overpowering. Have you thought of converting it to monochrome where you could work more with the tonalities, and perhaps tone down the area of the right that is more soft focused?

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Hi Floyd,

First, just to get it off my chest - I think your strategy needs to include light diffusion.

Now, having said that, running a strobe into 12 lines that can be placed as you wish is fascinating and wonderful and I can see how that would absolutely make macro shooting much more interesting. Controlling light on macro shots is always a major pain.

Could you speak more about what it takes to run a strobe into those optic cables? Also, I like very much how you control the stage area. Thank you for sharing your setup!

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

The picture posted is an incidental throwaway, of no significance by itself. The interesting topic is how it was made. (Incidentally I listed the magnification incorrectly, it is about 1:1.54, or a bit less than 1:1.)

The macro bench has quite an arrangement of devices to hold things like baffles, filters, reflectors, and diffusers, as well as the light guides. I didn't use any diffusers for this particular example (the purpose was avoiding the diffusion that is unavoidable in typical macro illumination setups), but diffusers are part of the basic tool kit. Lots of possibilities to explore..., mostly enabled or greatly enhanced by using the strobe light with multiple fiber guides and providing for many variations in how things can be positioned.

It isn't extremely obvious, but the camera is mounted on a StackShot motorized focusing rail. That was not used for the image shown. Higher magnification, using microscope objectives as the lens, and focus stacking is the primary purpose of the macro bench. The bench has been progressively developing for several years now.

I had the strobe and a snoot, but no experience with illumination via fiber. A week or so wandering around on eBay to see what is available, and then ordering up several light guides that looked like they might work allowed experimenting to see what did actually work.

The first thing discovered was that multiple guides was a really good thing! Larger and smaller, each provides interesting variations. The more the better too, and the limit is what can be positioned in front of a strobe's flashbulb. This bundle doesn't have any 1mm guides, but the next version will.

Positioning the fiber in the snoot didn't make much difference in light output from the guides. It's a little brighter if the fiber is closer to the flashbulb, but nothing critical. Maybe a large focusing lens would help, but the mechanics appear daunting to me. The choice of a 640 WS strobe seems good as it allows shooting at low ISO values even with the aperture stopped down to f/11.

To keep the bundle centered in the snoot I fabricated a baffle with a press fit, plus tape to hold it in place, inside the snoot. It has a hole in the center that is about the same size as the front of the snoot, and the bundle of guides extends and inch or so past the baffle toward the flashbulb. There is black foam material, both for padding and to block light, stuffed around the guides where they exit the snoot, and then it is taped up with electricians tape to hold it in place. It is not excessively sturdy, so a clamp was mounted to the shelf to support the guides.

Positioning the lights for any given subject is pretty much the same as one would do with a larger subject and many studio lights, except that the output from any given fiber guide cannot be adjusted. Multiple guides or a larger guide for more light and single smaller guides for less. Also the angle of coverage is wide enough that moving the light guide farther from the subject reduces the light intensity. Adding 1mm fiber guides to the next revision will allow illumination of very restricted areas.

This experimentation is expected to lead to developing a portable unit that can be used in the field. Not something that can be backpacked, but I'm too old for that even with lightweight gear. I want to photograph plants on the Arctic tundra, up to at least 5x magnification and hopefully with at perhaps some success at 10x. But that won't be with a 150 pound macro bench... :-)

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Thank you so very much for this!!

Not too long ago I got a Godox strobe that I am liking very much for it's HSS abilities - with a softbox it is fantastic for close up work.

because of you, My future will require two snoots. One I will outfit as you have - just for the flexibility given to control light.

But the other, I want to load with fiber and have all the ends surrounding a center point with a radius or an inch or two. Kind of like a ringlight - but pointing inward instead of forward. Then I might be able to use a glass lined with tissue as a diffused stage/chamber for rail shots through a microscope objective. Because of the close working distance, I can only bring light in from the sides and behind and have always had trouble providing enough light. The idea you have presented might just lick that problem!!! And since the strobe can also provide light to focus with... Anyway - you said it, with macro and smaller you just can't get enough light on the subject.

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

when I search fiber optic guide on ebay, the items seem expensive. But plain old plastic fiber optic at two yards and a hundred strands from China seems cheap. I am thinking about a dozen of such and cutting them in half and wrapping groups/segments up in tape.

also your goal of a field unit - and your goals sound really cool.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Godox has some really interesting strobes! Built in portability with a Lithium battery, and with an LED modeling light. Plus TTL and wireless that works with Nikon. That LED modeling light might be significantly better than the Buff strobes, which just don't have enough modeling light getting into the fiber cables to be used for focusing. The Buff Cybersync control is great, but it knows nothing about the camera. (I'm heavily invested in White Lightning and Einstein strobes from Buff.)

The ring light you are thinking about is something I need also. I've ordered (not received yet) one fiber ring light. But the darn things cost too much to try half a dozen of them! It appears this one (Harashi Fiber Optic ring light guide MRG31-1000S, with a 30mm inside diameter ring) directs the light forward. They are designed for use on microscopes, so they might be perfect. It may also be possible to mount a reflector or a diffuser that would redirect light more towards the center axis. Just have to wait and see what works.

And for real light, what you are suggesting would be fantastic! A ring that holds 8 5mm fiber guides in a circle, with the light aimed at enough of an angle that it can be back from the objective just enough to avoid lens flare. That could also be used with 3 or 4 guides on one side and only 1 or 2 on the other to provide contrast for edges.

I'll have to look through the Follow Focus stuff that is available to see if there is any ready made hardware that would be easy to modify.

Using a larger standard ring light was relatively disappointing!