Macro++

That was some amount of rains that we received this week! It's just amazing, but sad in the same time because I couldn't do much with it. I'm not driving my car, and didn't do any photography in such weather (and it would be better to have weather-proof protection stuff). My car was supposed to get fixed this week as the garage called me and said the chip they need arrived from outside and needed my permission and my agreement for the price to work on. According to them, they said 1 or 2 days will suffice. But with such rains, I didn't get any calls yet. Probably the rains are the reason for this. I can't believe I will see this car again. I'm growing sick driving other cars.

Macro Plus

I've been continuing my work with trials to do macro shots (or extra macro I should say). The work wasn't much of a success in fact for many factors. It made re-think my approach to do the whole thing really.

The System!
Click to Enlarge

As you can see on the left, the system is truly cumbersome. Long set of lenses and extensions, portable monitor, (shaky) tripod and lateral arm, with weights (dumbbell weights) added inside a sack to keep the arm and tripod balanced. I didn't make a glass surface for the macro experiments but I've been using the glass door that fell from the cabinet (the one in the picture). Sorry about the image quality as the image was taken with my mobile. I kind of suck at such images!
For the purpose of lighting I've bought two somewhat powerful LED torches or flashlights that got about 24 LEDs on one surface, plus 3 or 4 on the side in case a narrow beam is required. I think I might need to add a mirror.

Leaf

One of the shots done with the system shown above is a shot for the surface of a small leaf. As you can see above, the image is out of focus. Focusing is one of the big issues here and this is why such system as the one above is a cumbersome technique. According to some websites (they are a lot you just have to Google around) the magnification factor can be found by: Focal Length (1) / Focal Length (2), that is, the ratio of the focal lengths of the two reversed lenses, where (1) is for the lens attached to the camera, and (2) is for the reversed lens.
Hence, it is logical to attach the longest focal length possible to the camera, and the smallest focal length possible in reverse. I think I will use the notation "FL1/FL2" when it comes to image descriptions later. In my case, the largest focal length I could achieve is using the (broken) Tamron lens at 300mm plus two teleconverters, yielding 1200mm in total. The smallest focal length that can be attached in reverse is 18mm (with my old 18-55mm), and the result would be 1200mm/18mm, equals to 66.66X or approximately 67X! Meaning an object would be magnified 67 times its original size! Unfortunately, this was just a theory and in practice, working with such tools isn't plausible at all and can hardly do any good. Thus, I've neglected this approach for the time being and started to do it in other ways, like using the Canon EF 100mm macro lens in reverse with the 50mm lens.

Shaving Razor

Onion Peel

One of the issues that I was investigating is the placement of the teleconverters and the extension tube before the first lens (or the primary lens, attached to the camera). In some websites, they emphasize the placement of the extension tubes in between the converters and the lens. However, practically, seems the situation is the same in terms of magnification power, but probably it works better with the teleconverters attached in between the tubes and the lens. Maybe it is just a coincidence that it worked that way with me anyway, as most of the images here like the Shaving Razor and Onion Peel were all taken with such configuration. Later on, however, I started to use that system without reversing the lens, but simply using the 100mm macro lens with extension tubes and teleconverters.
The light direction was drastic for some shots, specially for translucent objects. Again, No lens reversing this time but I did have hard time focusing. The shake took its toll on the shoot.

Comparison

The leaf shot above is taken once with LED lights below the glass plate, and once on the sides of the leaf. One of the somewhat awkward features for using LED lighting is the bluish streak. The Automatic WB setting wasn't enough to correct the colors but it was (somehow) corrected in post-processing. Anyway, it is obvious that the look changes drastically with the change of light direction, like if it s a 3D object. Personally, I do prefer the lighting on the sides. However, this might not possible all the time, as the set of lenses can get to the subject so close that leaves no room for the light on the sides, the lighting from below is the only solution.

Beard
Canon EF 50mm+36mm extension tube,
f/22, 40^-1sec, ISO400.

RoundFlash
Source: B&H

Along with it, I've decided to do some test for the RoundFlash. This time, it's not an extra macro shot but a simple one with my 50mm and 36mm tube. This simple trial did indeed show me how the length of the lens (not the focal length but the physical length) and the closest focusing distance do play a role when using this flash add-on. I think the optimal use would be for a lens that does not protrude much outside the limits of the RoundFlash and if the subject is considerably far from the RoundFlash to allow the light to fill it properly. Here with my beard experiment, the distance was so close (and literally part of my chin was inside the RoundFlash!) because of the extension tube, and that caused a bit of smooth light and shadows (but with the help of relatively high ISO as well). The RoundFlash seems promising but I'm sure it's not a complete replacement for the typical ring flash, and for that I did place several items in my B&H wishlist which are both, expensive and cheap.

Thoughts

With this work with some macro ventures, I've somehow formulated some ideas and thoughts that might lead my work in the future:

• Practically, using extension tubes alone is enough to get a magnified and well viewed image. I think I was obsessed with the idea of turning my camera and lenses into a microscope and I didn't look at the validity of such practice and how it would reflect on my artistic side.
• I've been using a remote cable with a delay, plus the 10sec timer in the camera itself, and yet seems the images do have a shake. Probably it is because of the mirror (even though I do use the LiveView mode to hold the mirror), and the mirror lock-up mode doesn't work with the remote cable and Bulb mode (as some of these exposures took a minute to achieve). There must be a way to reduce this shake at least if not stop it.#
• Because touching the system with so much lenses together does produce a horrendous shake on the macro level, probably it is better to move the plate or the surface and keep the system stable as much as possible; and this is exactly how a microscope works! This, however, requires some mechanism work!
• I do own an old microscope. Is it possible to implement that system into my camera and lenses? It is easy to talk about afocal system when it comes to astrophotography or bird watching; but on a macro level? I'm not sure if this is even possible.
• Aesthetically: what do I want? It is obvious in such field, most of the shots would be scientific-like or simply abstract. Now if it is an abstract, arranging the lines and the edges of the frame is of a prime importance. The possibility of such arrangement, though, is yet to be questioned and experienced practically.

These are some of my thoughts so far about macro (or extreme macro) shooting, and more work has to be done soon and yet I have to discover some good subjects to shoot at!

Nostalgia

Among the other things that I try to do to keep me busy, there are some photos that I've decided to turn into something else. simply by converting them to B&W. Probably I was looking for some venting for my feelings specially that most of these images are those taken while traveling. I guess it is a case of nostalgia, for some days that can't be repeated, not in the meantime at least, to say.

Ghostly Room (B&W)
The Victorian B&B, Staten Island, NYC.

Thornbrook House B&B (Re-Visited)
Cashel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland.

Re-visiting old photos and converting them into B&W can be fruitful in a new set of images, specially in a time where my activities are hitting low. However, the trend is always to convert color images to B&W (for various reasons and not merely just to change the feel), but would there be a trend of changing B&W photos into colored ones? I'm not talking about the technique of coloring the old photos and movies, like those documentaries done for WWI and WWII, but I'm talking about digital photography and RAW files. I remember one time I've created 2 albums for a set of photos from Ireland, in which one was colored and the other was B&W for the same set of images, but probably I've done that without thinking deeply into that matter back then. Initially, what I think, is that coloring that B&W images adds almost nothing, since the B&W gains strength in its composition in the first place, and in the tonalities involved second. The introduction of colors into images that are already strong and fine-looking in B&W seems to be breaking the harmony and should be avoided, unless there is some good reason to do this! Generally speaking though, the B&W style seems to be the proper representation for nostalgia after all.

Geltani

This project has been on hold for weeks. Anyway, I've started to work a bit more right now and I've almost finished the set of leading parts of the syllables. What's required now is to polish this set, and try more grammar and more sentences. Initially, the order is supposedly to be S.O.V., mimicking the Turkish grammar. On the other hand, there are still some details that should be worked out. I have to check how to make a simple introductory page for Geltani to represented on Omniglot, in case it is to be accepted. Moreover, the syllables to write foreign words and names into Geltani has to be checked out again since it seems that I've made up some mistakes before.

Finale

Currently, it seems that I'm under pressure to do the most I can do with my camera, just before my eyes get bitter sooner or later. Next Monday will be the day of my appointment to do some tests. I'm still waiting for my car as I see some hope that it will be fixed soon according to the garage's statement. All this time, they were waiting for the spare part to be delivered from outside, as it is cheaper than the local vendor. As soon as I get MY car, I have to plan for a trip to Failaka island. Such weather is not to be missed on the island!

Source: Amazon

I've mentioned before that doing a panorama with my new IR gel filter is on the list of things to be done. However, this can't be done right now easily after the wave of rains that we received this week, and needless to say that I do need some "nice" location, to say the least. Yes, I can do it at home, but I'm bored of this place already. On the other hand, I'm planning to put Allison Earnest's book into practice by implementing her ideas and methodology. The book is quite good and systematic in its approach. Probably it doesn't give much details concerning calculations and evaluations of light levels, but it does provide great deal about sculpting light and how to approach a project. My work though would be using my two speedlites with some of the light modifiers I have already. The difference is, with studio lights, you can use modeling light to properly position the light and check the expected shadows location before the actual shot is taken. However, with speedlites, the modeling is limited to the pilot button which casts a fast light strike into the scene. Thus, understanding the power of the speedlite is critical. I guess I will be starting with simple objects around the house.
Finally, this leaves me with my own self at the end. With all these projects in my mind and these trials to push myself to be active by force, all seems but just a trial to escape from my own feelings about life and my own self. I think I'm in a status where I'm not sure if I should embrace loneliness, or curse it. Even a loveless marriage didn't work out with me to leave this house. It does sound more like being in a jail rather than a home. Even a prisoner might have someone to talk to, to share thoughts with,  to have hopes with - yet, I don't see this coming my way at all. It's simply a dead heart walking...

The InfraWeek...

This week been somehow a busy week with my infrared filter. After some trials that were done last week with the infrared filter, and after learning some new methods to process infrared RAW files, I've been planning for new shots and even visiting old shots for re-processing.
Before I delve deeper into this matter of the infrared venue, I do like to thank all visitors for peaking up my Flickr profile to more than 2000 hits in a single day! This is a first time to be that way. I think my own personal record was something a bit more than 1000 hits in a single day before!

Click to Enlarge

Infra

One of the main problems in processing infrared images (beside working with unconverted camera) is the fact that the white balance is limited when working in ACR, or even in Canon's DPP. Canon's DPP though was somehow a good tool before but currently and with my new acquired shots from last week, it didn't make much difference. Anyway, I've gone through some articles online and I've discovered a free software provided by Adobe, namely the DNG Profile Editor.
I won't get into the details of this tool and how to use it, but in a brief sentence, all I can say is, it makes a profile to be used in ACR, and it would maximize the range of the white balance in some way. This step alone, made me re-think about previous shots and the possibility of shedding them under a new light.

Frozen Coal
Cropped from original.

One of these old shots was a shot taken in the beginning of this year, in winter specifically, when we were still using coal trays or something like that to enjoy some traditional tea! Anyway, the shot that was taken and processed in the traditional way and even back then, swapping the channels (of Red and Blue to give an alien feeling to the image) did not yield or give much sense. Right now, though, the story is completely different and swapping the channels after fixing the white balance in the RAW file can yield a promising result. I say "can" here, so don't take it for granted!

InfraCoal

However, the coal shot was an "indoor" shot and not outside, thus I had to dig in my archive and see if there is anything like that taken with infrared. I've found one shot, for which I needed DxO to deal with its distortion and other criteria and this one, too, did a good job in swapping the channels.

Infraarbeitplatz

Despite this promising result from a previous shot, but it didn't really work out for much of the shots taken back when I just had the filter. Some of them didn't work out as before and some of them were better rather in red shade like the Ciudad en Rojo.

Ciudad en Rojo
Canon EF 18-55mm @35mm, f/8, 3.2sec, ISO100.

Anyway, after looking back at my stock of infrared shots, I've decided to increase the stock a bit more just to work with processing more images of this kind. This is my preferred method of learning (specially in Photoshop), and reading alone won't do me any good!
For this reason I've decided to take my camera to work with me and try to find something just to shoot with my infrared filter.

One of the first trials at work is a little plant which looked like a palm tree (but it's not). I leave the classification of this plant for the professionals! Anyway, it was a shot in a hurry as the background and the distance were not suitable really.

Paulo Palma
Canon EF 50mm, f/2, 1.3sec, ISO100.

Naturally, some infrared shots would turn completely or partially to black and white. I think this is the magic of infrared photography. Somehow, the result can be unpredictable. Anyway, there is a major difficulty with unconverted camera (i.e. camera with modified sensor for IR photography). As I will show later, this was a problem in some shots which required a fast shutter speed in a breezy weather. However, in Paulo Palma, the weather was relatively stable and not much of a breeze in the air, but surely had a problem framing the image while the sun striking on my neck and on the LCD! I've used a wide aperture relatively (and hence the shallow depth) just to ensure a faster shutter. Otherwise, it could have taken up to 3 or 6, or even 10 seconds for this shot.

One of the major hassles while working with IR images is the noise level even when ISO is set to the lowest. Next, comes the soft focus. These two matters makes it uneasy for me to upload such images on the web, and specifically into stock agencies. Thus, imagine when you are forced to increase the ISO under such conditions. The noise are simply "ridiculous". However, the noise can be less pronounced and just get more attention when channel swapping is formed, that is, replacing the places of the Red and the Blue channels in the RGB mode. At this point, the typical noise reduction plugins in Photoshop won't do much good, but the major trick is to play around with Hue/Saturation to twist the colors and make the noise virtually negligible. Then comes the next trick of adjusting the contrast to suppress some grain, and then we have the change in the color space by using the Assign command in Photoshop (not Convert). The Assign command, for some reason, does reduce (or maybe re-distribute?) the noise level, sometimes to a great extent. This is some of what I've learned doing long exposures last summer on the beach!

Infra Columnae
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 6^-1sec, ISO200.

InfraDoor
Canon EF 18-55mm @22mm,
f/16, 8sec, ISO200.

Despite the general look of the infrared shots, which tends to be in black and white, but the fact is lot of shots I've done were low saturated and just close to the black and white level. This is done by virtue within the processing of such shots, specially via Hue/Saturation when I try to reduce the noise by such an adjustment layer. The fact is, IR photography got a potential for various aesthetic settings or processes just like, or almost like, the HDR technique. The hard part, might be, to predict the final look of the shot. With HDR and its processes, you can imagine what's the final image is on location (specially if it is some metallic surface). However, this is still not so evident for me when I work with IR. Shots like Infra Columnae and InfraDoor were so various and I didn't know whether they would be colored slightly, or I'll be needing channel swap, or simply turn everything into black and white. The main puzzle is how to settle down the white balance. Usually, I do like to set the white balance from any green surface in the image if there is any but that doesn't mean I would like it. I suppose the green surface is the first choice because the green color is in the middle of the spectrum, not sure about this theory though! InfraDoor specifically is a subject for an HDR shot and it got me back to my old habit of still life and abstracts by geometrical means, like I used to do before around my work place - anyway this might be a subject for another post some other day!

Then one day came a challenge that took me 2 days to perform. It's a small bloom that was barely 1cm (~0.394in) in height. Not only I had to get so low with the tripod, but approaching the bloom and getting closer to it was critical. The first day, I tried to get to it by the end of the day before leaving my work place but the sun was so harsh that, beside my personal troubles, the LCD was barely visible and I had nothing to cover it (things to put on my purchase list as it seems). Thus, I had to come the next day and try to get to it in the early morning time just before the sun strikes that spot specifically.

Truncartis Parvis
Canon EF 100 macro + ET, f/8, 30^-1sec, ISO200.

I'm putting Truncartis Parvis here for comparison with shots that were taken with infrared filter later. In Truncartis Parvis there were two main problems: first, the low light level as the sun wasn't shining on the spot (ironic), and secondly, the breeze which required faster shutter speed to stop the motion of the tiny bloom. I didn't bring my speedlite with me that day thus I had to depend on the simple flash on-camera. Because I couldn't get so close to the bloom, I had to use the macro 100mm lens with extension tubes added gradually to it. By using 12, 20, and 36 tubes gradually I was able to make some estimate about the relative size of the bloom within the frame. Truncartis Parvis (which means the small jungle by the way) was taken with all tubes (i.e. 68mm) added to the macro lens. Thus, I was trying to hit some balance between the 3 variables: ISO, speed, and aperture. I didn't like the idea of raising the ISO too high for such a "normal" shot thus I had to put down the aperture to f/8 (after trying f/16). They say in macro photography, it's better not to go below f/8. However, such balance was even harder to achieve and I had to give up with the ISO when I started taking infrared shots with that setting (remember the sun was not striking the place, yet).

Glowing Bloom (Gold)
Canon EF 100mm macro + ET, f/4, 15^-1sec, ISO1600.

As you can see above, in Glowing Boom (Gold), the shutter speed was barely acceptable amid the breezes in the weather, and this is only achieved with ISO1600 and  shallow depth of f/4 with maximum flash output. Probably it would have been an easier task if my speedlite was with me but I had to deal with the situation as it is and yet the shot was of a surrealistic approach somehow. The noise level, however, was a novel on its own right.
The shot above was done without channel swapping (and of course with some processing on the side to suppress the background noise). Hence the "(Gold)" part in the name. After Red and Blue channels swapping, it appeared as beautiful as the first as it seems...

Glowing Bloom (Blue)
Canon EF 100mm macro + ET, f/4, 15^-1sec, ISO1600.

It is amazing how the infrared filter clears off the differences in tones and colors and makes the petals as if they are made with one color (compare with the one taken without filter above). At the end and just before I take off, I've decided to do one last trial but this time with one less extension tube just to include more background into the frame. Ironically though, I've decided to crop the final image into a square to reduce the background!

Gecenin Çiçek
Canon EF 100mm macro, f/5.6, 10^-1sec, ISO1600.

That was "some" of the trials done with the infrared filter for this week, but not the end of it. I need to study the artistic chances and venues behind this filter. It is cumbersome to use it of course with an unconverted camera, yet it does help in long exposures anyway!

Conclusion

Potentially, there is so much to be done in the IR field. Something behind the typical vivid and surreal landscape shots that we usually see under this category of photography.
However, I do find myself debating myself about the aesthetic prospect of such shots. Usually, what I read in articles online about IR photography is that the grains (or noise) and the fuzzy focus is something natural and even characteristic of this type of photography. There are even some Photoshop tutorials that deal with photo manipulation; that is to edit a normal photo and make it look like it is taken under IR, and one critical step in the overall process is to add grain or noise to the whole image (beside reducing the saturation). However, do people accept that, or do agencies? I'm reluctant about uploading such images to stock agencies. I did already upload to some of them but it's just a test and I'm very doubtful about their acceptance for such shots with such high grain level. This, somehow, makes IR photography a highly fine-art branch I believe, and agencies wouldn't love this type of photography much, unless some of them do know what does it mean to take IR shots with all that noise and defocus.
The almost-random aspect of processing IR shots makes it as vivid and wild as HDRs but let's say with different tones. You can do crazy things with the HDR techniques and lot of people hate the halos produced in over-tone-mapping HDR images, and IRs also got the same potential. If you check Infra Columnae back up above again, you'd notice that the image is almost black and white except of a spot that shows clearly as green. I'm pretty sure some people won't like it that way; just a matter of how the human brain works I believe.
In the near future, however, I do need to work more with such filters specially to see how does it change the skin tones. I've done some simple trials on myself but these are not enough and I need more. First though, I have to know what kind of relation there is between studio (or let's say the speedlites) light and this kind of filters.
After all, it is just something to get my mind busy and away from my collapsible life for the time being. I do miss doing lot of things; panoramas specifically. Anyway, got to wait for winter to arrive. This summer I'm literally melting down my body, and mood...