for the pass 2-3 months we had real bad weather where most of the time sky were full of cloud … and we had stop almost all sunrise & sunset activities except going for some long exposures and luck trying …
Last week, we went to an old spot – Pantai Pasir Panjang – Port Dickson which discuss previously… with not high hope but the light simple amazing with beautiful magic moment … (and why I say maagic moment as it just happen for 2-4 minutes)
Dec visit where we had no choice to make long exposure shot instead
and for last week …
and hope the light will be continue and I will be back in action !!!!
Not really a rare one but this was my 2nd time see it in my country …. and should consider a rare insect for myself ….
and this was under same order with my belove lacewing (Order Neuroptera) that’s why I saw some lacewing eggs around the area … but it belong to owl-fly instead …
this is a bug rest a lot .. but not easy to look for it as it can quietly fly near by you but as long as you found it , it allow you get close to it … even at night torch light can direct to it for minutes it will still stay still … a beautiful and good macro model
it is not difficult to shoot stars as long as we have the luck and right setting, and let me share some of my experience… but it is fun and tiring for sure ……
as Earth is rotating itself, so all the stars are moving (except for the Poles star, North star, or call Polaris)… so while we shoot the sky for more than certain time the stars will become either lines or circle (depend which direction, how long you shoot usually >30s small line will be appear). to avoid this, extra telescope equipment (e.g.Losmandy G11 with Celestron C8), we can either shoot a star trail or max ~30-50s else the star will be look like a small lines instead of blinking stars….
e.g. of 727s single exposure
and sample of 30s
– I do not own one those equipment so I do not know in depth .. but basic is those equipment will auto trace the stars so we can have longer exposure (which really need it while in real dark environment and do not want to shoot super high ISO
so … I shoot as below
1. star trail
a. in real dark environment, make a rough estimation of exposure with setting below
i. biggest aperture as possible
ii. infinity focus
iii. manual focus
iv. mirror lock up
v. high ISO normally I use ~400-1600 depend the environment
vi. for the exposure depend on the light pollution … may need few try to get right exposure
vii. shoot 2 picture .. the sky one could be very long and make the foreground over expose. so shoot another exposure for foreground
– refer picture above expose 700s in single shutter
b. not so dark environment
i. biggest aperture as possible
ii. infinity focus
iii. manual focus
iv. mirror lock up
v. high ISO normally I use ~400-1600 depend the environment
vi. shoot 10-30s depend how bad is the light pollution
vii. set shooting mode to continuous shooting, and use remote to continue shooting for >20mintues (you should see some line or curve depend which direction you face)
viii. shoot 2 picture .. the sky one could be very long and make the foreground over expose. so shoot another exposure for foreground
viiii. use a software call startrail.exe (google it) or StarStax (MAC) and it can auto stack the all shots into single frame which combine the star as line/curve
or check out here
x. shoot north and south 😀 , if possible… if you prefer circle/curve compare to lines
xi. I use a software load into my android call skymap .. real coold application, you should have it , if you love night photography
so here is few sample for option b
~40minutes exposure
exposure of ~30minutes of F2.8 @ISO800
to capture Milky Way, it is almost same like a star but it is more sensitive to light pollution and rotation.. (mean star trail , and we try to avoid that for Milky way as it crease blur cloud object instead the beautiful milky way)
we may need to take note of rule 600 where
600 rule simply basic rule to avoid “star trail” effect while we have too long exposure on our effective focal length.. e.g.
16mm on FULL frame, we should have max exposure of 600/16=37.5s
16mm on canon APS-c , we should have max exposure of 600/16*1.6=23.4
so if we have anything more than the exposure time the the rotation of earth will create “star trail” effect create blur effect on to our frame.
with minimum light pollution .. the color of the milky will look so beautiful
.. Milky from Bake’lalan …
from Bali …
… Milky way from Bali …
e.g. of light pollution
… city light pollution …
and Milky way near city (Kuala Lumpur) .. not viewable by nake eye .. but make use of big aperture len .. it can be capture
I found this place ~2 years ago while I look for macro spots but accidentally found this is a nice place for birding (birds seem not too worry/shy to human) ….
While I revisit this place last few weeks ago, found this is a good spot for nightscape, sunrise, and sunset too …. so decide to travel ~160km from KL toward north … while we reach we are shock with the stars and the stars reflection on the lakes ….
within 48 hours I make 2nd visit and continue to shoot the star trail .. which I stop sharing months back due to the bad schedule and weather ……….
45 pictures stack
each 40s , ISO800, F2.8 (Fisheye)
5dm2
I am sure this place going to be another famous spots for night scape, sunrise and sunset soon … but before I share out the location let’s me check is this private area or public 😀
Every macro shot that I shoot, I trying my best to get few focus shot to increase my MACRO picture DOF which previously discuss how I stack it @ How I increase MACRO DOF . Because of that, I always shoot few shots before I stop and while I am shooting I will not leave the insect but keep monitor them… some time, they will so some action which may attract me to capture the action to make it as an animation to show …
Let me share how I make my gif file… there are many software can make that but I use only Photoshop to create the animation gif file …
1. load the file into stack
2. if you doing this with full size it need a lot of memory to work on .. so normally resize before load into single stack. it will align the pictures …
3. crop the main object so all the picture in same size and same location
4. from the left panel (layer) save file by file with the new orientation and size
5. after save all the file , load it again into a stack
6. click on Windows –> Animation
7. from the animation window, choose all the files, or re-order the files. highlight all then choose the time for each picture to appear
8. save as web, choose gif file … then the gif file animation is ready
every year Nov -Jan , Peninsular Malaysia will have Monsoon season or we call raining season … some places of east coast of Malaysia always face flood issue after days raining … and most of the fisherman stop go out to sea due to the bad weather ….
Most of the photographer will get rest this period as normally the sky look cloudy … wave is too strong …. but I have the plan to shoot the wave, slow shutter … and if luck on my side then I can get strong wave hit the rock .. so I went there 2 times 2010 for my wish …. even though we not seeing any sun at all for ~6 days trip but I still enjoy the strong wave … and beautiful places found (thanks Yusri, Azizi & CK Zinal for bringing us there…)
a quick capture how strong is the wave
even we missed out the beautiful egg yolk
but we still trying our best to get some slow shutter shots
cloudy day is good too
How Shunfa shooting a slow shutter in this type of environment … and video below show how he shoot slow shutter without filter holder 😀
there are few issue shooting in this type of environment
1. get ready be wet, get extra shirt, pants ….
2. protect your gear
3. solid tripod
4. look for stable ground (rocks) for tripod
5. temperature different cause Water vapor inside len
possible for MP-E65 and the Background color (F8, 1/160, ISO100)
ii. with only ET @full magnification
iii.plus 1.4TC
iv. full magnification front view
it look pretty acceptable to me but I still trying to improve it and I will mostly use SIGMA150 for coming weekend outing ….
think now the light tent diffuser started by Stephen is a very good solution for macro .. do not worry on what you have trying to find a good way to DIY your tent/cup diffuser, yours lighting will be almost ready …..
few sample of the simple tent diffuser user
sample result from kit len + raunox202 + lighting diffuser with build in flash …. visit Jeffrey Photostream
if you interested to know more and know how to DIY the lighting for your MACRO setup … you may attend one of my workshop or outing to ask further 😀
I am not want to discuss further on what is DOF, what DOF we have while we do MACRO … but I am sharing how do we increase DOF, as below
i. choose best angle to have more visible DOF
ii. using Post Processing – Stack – also discussed previously
iii. shoot smaller magnification and crop (if you want to know how smaller magnification affect the DOF please refer above link)
I have a same spider but slight change of angle but different magnification as shown below
@1:1 magnification
@2:1 magnification
I simply crop the 1:1 picture to magnification close to ~2:1
and let’s me share further magnification and further crop picture below to show what’s the different of DOF
@biggest magnification with full 21 mega pixels.
@crop from ~2:1 picture …lost ~50% of the resolution but check out the DOF it have more than the biggest magnification one
@crop from ~1:1 picture …lost >75% of the resolution but check out the DOF it have more than the biggest magnification one
so if you do not mind lost the resolution which you may not want to print yours’ picture big …. crop to get bigger magnification also another choice for you .. but if you prefer to have max resolution to have your picture to be print big or sale …. use the stack method … (for the stack … you may also use 3rd party software e.g. CombineZM …..
and for me … I seldom crop my MACRO or Landscape picture >20% … the crop normally is plan while I shoot so it can be off center or not too tight into single frame …..
I am working on 2 pano MACRO shot … and think this is quite important especially for MP-E65 user.. so just have a quick copy and paste over
Why I need to Stitch ? I start stitch my macro due to I have my MPE where only do minimum 1:1 (1x life time) and any object that >22mm will not fit in single picture frame … and how I get the whole object into a single picture …… hmmm I am thinking a stitch it …. and I have my very 1st try while outing to Fraser Hill 21 Nov 2008, where I saw plenty of BIG moth and I cannot fit it into a single picture e.g.
[shot with 1:1] , and this is too big for me and I am thinking how I got the whole moth view .. and I finally did something for a smaller one
[stitch picture]
[picture 2:1]
How I do Stitch ??? 1. for start, how we shoot
We need to shot picture at same level of view so I normally shot at standard angle where esily to shoot another e.g. face direct view, side view …….. e.g.
How I do Stitch ??? 1. for start, how we shoot
We need to shot picture at same level of view so I normally shot at standard angle where esily to shoot another e.g. face direct view, side view …….. e.g.
i. face focus on left eye
ii. focus on right eye
iii. focus on face
2. use Photoshop “Photomerge” option
3. i use “interactive layout”
4. select the file you wish to stitch
5. this will take some time depend how many pictures to stitch and your PC power 😀
– if this is not auto merge then try to move around the picture to try manual to merge the pictures ….
6. click Ok after #5, then it will come out like standard JPEG with multiple layers
7. for the non-cover area, either crop it away or clone it 😀
8. normally I will use multiple shots again to stack the focus area by using method discuss in
