A little pull-over in the Allegan Forest. There is a small parking area carved into the woods, with a gated-off two track leading back to several large fields, one of which has a handful of crumbling foundation slabs from some sort of long gone building complex. Earlier this week on a snowy day a shaft of sunlight emerged, hitting just the road with direct light, while I stood a few yards off in the shadow. Well, thankfully I had an old twin lens reflex camera with me....
A macro photo of an agate slice:
Approximately 3x lifesized, 56 stacked images. Backlit. There is not much point in focus stacking something relatively flat like this - but moving the focal plane into the semi-transparent rock slice does seem to bring out some details and structures that enhance the image. And stacking also spared me from having to align the stone to the camera's focal plane.
A 4x lifesized macro of a bismuth Crystal:
This portion of the crsytal was in a recessed "stair step" structure, which was very difficult to light. I wound up abondoning the use of flash and instead shot with ambient lighting. This resulted in a very long shutter speed of about 1/2 second for each image. Made with a Pentax K01 and reverse mounted SMC K 24 f3.5. 70 stacked images.
Closeup of the central swirl of an Ammonite fossil:
Made from 16 exposures focus stacked in Photoshop, magnification of approximately 1.5x lifesized.
A Planthopper collected last summer and photographed yesterday, December 9:
Taken at approximately 4x lifsized.
The 2015 Signature Artist Gallery is open and underway for our 36th season! Here's a snapshot of my corner of the gallery this year:
I'm also featuring a photobook of extreme macro photos - Creatures! As always the gallery features multiple forms of fine art -watercolors, pastels, jewelery, pottery, metal, turned wood, archetectual ornaments, fiber, and furniture. There are even a few swords and drinking horns. This years gallery is again located at 4602 West Main Street, Kalamazoo, MI 49006. For more about the gallery visit our website - signature-artist.com
I wanted to make a stacked macro today, so I pulled a specimen out of the freezer without looking, figuring I'd work with whatever I got.
Ouch! I winced when I saw how small this one was! Why do I even bother to collect things this size...
So - here it is... When I collected it I thought it was a drone ant with wings intact, but looking at it I think it is actually a wasp, possibly family Sphecidae - thread waisted wasps.It was very small and this portrait was taken at about 8x lifesized. Update: I have since learned that this is indeed a winged ant.
Pentax K01, K24mm f3.5 reverse mounted on a lot of extension. Here is a reference image of the insect, taken at about 1:1 lifesized:
A focus stacked macro photo of a Milkweed Bug, probably Oncopeltus fasciatu:
Collected several weeks ago when the milkweed seedpods were getting ready to open. Shot at about 4x lifesized, Pentax K01 with reverse mounted SMC K 24mm f3.5 on extension. 130 exposures in 2 stacks, combined in Zerene Stacker.