These have all been enhanced a little in the free beta version of Serif's Affinity Photo which is still being developed and continuously updated. What a difference when a RAW file is loaded. It loads into a different section of the program (they call the different sections personas). Here there are many tweaks for clarity, tonal values, etc.. I am still more than a little impressed at the speed of the program. All tweaks are seen instantly.
They were all saved as jpg with just a small 5% compression as RAW isn't recognised by Flickr and large PNG or TIF files take for ever with my slow upload speed. None of the files have been cropped. All are solo shots, no stacking this time.
The set up:
The first subject looked good initially until it was loaded in the laptop. The flower of the Globular Buddleia was a devil to get anything like in focus. It has few sharp edges to focus on:
Next came a Chives flower head which produced an additional surprise:
A small ant continuously crawling round the flower:
The head of a dwarf Bulrush which also had a small spider or mite which I only noticed when the photo was enlarged.
A small cactus. For this one I had to point the flash guns at the ceiling as the plant was so shiny. The yellow background was a marigold glove held behind the plant:
Lithops (Living Stone):
Finally - Bryophyllum - has many common names including Devil's Backbone:
It is unusual in that new plants grow round the edge of every leaf complete with tiny roots. A mature plant can have a dozen or more leaves each with over a dozen plantlets which drop off when ready and start new plants:
That's the lot. You can let out that sigh of relief now.
Impressive set up John, with great results.
ReplyDeleteI used to have one of those Bryophyllum, many years ago. I always knew it as Mother of Thousands.
And your secrets out ......... Marigolds! ;-)
Keith. Thank you. Mother of Thousands is another popular name.
DeleteMarigolds - can't beat them with messy jobs like cleaning out the gunge in the pond pump. ;)
Excellent John. I always shoot RAW. I use Bridge which gives thumbnails and quickly.
ReplyDeleteAdrian: Than you. Fortunately nearly everything on Apple can work with RAW files.
Deletereally nice macros!
ReplyDeleteTWG: Thank you.
DeleteI think you've got it, John! Some great shots there. I love the ant on the chive flower and the super macro of the cactus spines.
ReplyDeleteThank you Wilma. I was a bit disappointed that the ant wouldn't stay still long enough to get it fully in focus otherwise I was quite pleased with the results.
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