The Twins…

The weather is getting colder and colder (and makes me happy that way despite other things in my personal life)! It is time to prepare for some morning walks if possible, so we'll see to that.
In this quick post, I'm keeping up with the trend of macro shots, but this time, I'm going "extreme" macro, as at this point, I've tried to shoot at 5X, but this time, indoors. I hope the bougainvillea in the yard forgives me picking up one of her blooms!

Twins

Well, for this post, I will start with the "second" experiment and then go to the "first" because the second experiment gives a general outlook at what has been shot in the first experiment; Does that make sense? Hope so.
The story here began with picking another flower from one of the bougainvillea we have in the yard (hope they forgive me for that!) and started to shoot it indoors. This time, though, and unlike the flower in the previous post, the little white blooms of the bougainvillea were wide open, so I thought it is a good target. Since I need stability, I had to pick it and do my work inside.

雙胞胎
(the twins)

As I said, I will show those shot in the second trial before the first. Here, The Twins was shot using extension tubes (36mm) along with 50mm lens (typical). The image here was made soft on purpose (using the Clarity in ACR) and more softness was added later in the post-processing phase in Photoshop. Shooting at slightly different displacements made it also possible to create a 3D anaglyph!

The Twins (3D)

You might notice a horizontal flipping here between the normal and the 3D versions. Well, the 3D version is the original orientation. For some reason, I've felt that flipping the normal one was proper and going smoothly from right-to-left (maybe because this is how I read even though I'm reading English text more than I do with Arabic actually). Anyway, it just felt more normal that way for some reason!

So, at this point, this little experiment finished, but as i said, this is the second one and I will go through the first experiment now. I've actually made some artistic version(s) of this shot but I don't think I'll bother much about them for now.

Extreme

The first experiment, and the one for which I've actually picked this (poor) flower, is to do an extreme macro shoot, using focus stacking methods, to go deep into the flowers. Anyway, I have to say this now, I'm quite disappointed for the final results after all, but since it is a work that I've done and spent quite some time with, I guess it is worth of posting here. 

BouganBloom

Artistically, I don't think it is much to consider. Challenge-wise? Too much to bear with! Despite my initial plans to go at 5X, but I've pulled it back (for details sake and to have it slow this time) and shot the whole thing at 3.2X, and stacking about 211 shots (yes, two hundred and eleven). Despite this, there was still some gaps or artifacts when the stack was merged. I've actually tried many methods for stacking using other programs (e.g. EnfuseGUI) but all my trials failed in having a proper stacking blend. Maybe the best I could do in some of these programs is to align the images. The problem with Photoshop here is the consumption of memory in the process (same thing with panorama stitching). It made me doubt the process of shooting the stack and actually I've decided to get a new rail, which turned out later it's not the best option, but this is a story for another time for now (and I might do a review post and a comparison to my old rail), as I got that rail after all of the fuss done here. So, in a nutshell, I had to go back to the ol' Photoshop to do the stacking and the blending for this stack and you might notice that BouganBloom is cropped out of the 3:2 ratio, as I had to do it that way to keep artifacts or points that didn't blend properly out of the image but the blend is still not quite that good in general. Many of the details in BouganBloom were kind of "extracted" by excessive sharpening. Maybe new editions of Photoshop did fix all of these issues? Maybe it consumes lesser memory than my older version here? I'm really not sure about it, since I've never used one. 

Anyway, at this level, my work was done with this poor bloom, which actually had to be done quickly since the whole bloom withered and "melted" down few hours later and wasn't suitable to be shot further. I'm still planning to shoot some stacking in the future (specially at 5X which was supposed to be done here) but I'm still on the look for some good target to do so. The new rail kind of disappointed me but anyway it was comparatively cheaper and maybe it has other uses; Not all wasted I guess.

Finale

In the past few days I've spent a considerable time preparing for a special post about the Arabic Language day (December 18ᵗʰ), and actually ended up 9 of them so far, but I don't think I will be posting them here. They are, however, available on Instagram. The link leads to the English post, but it is available in other languages as well (Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Irish, Turkish, Farsi, and Greek), and I've tried my best to get over the randomness or faulty translations provided by Google Translate. Anyway, maybe I didn't succeed much with that, but I've tried!
The thing is that, in creating this post, I've thought quickly about doing light painting in some dark room (which I could barely make or use in the house). This actually made me think seriously about doing more light painting in the future. I had some humble trials in the past but never took it seriously. On another note, my phone does have a "light painting" mode which various options (using AI) which I've used before and it can create some interesting images indeed, but it lacks the flexibility in other things (mainly focusing and shooting in RAW for this purpose), yet it can come in handy at some point too, but my focus for now is using the DSLR to do the work. Not sure where I'm going with this though and I don't have quite have a specific target but we'll see if creativity kicks in (or something kicks me in).

On the mental plane, every day seems to be an occasion to hit a new low. In the past few days I've come into almost complete isolation (even online). I had the urge to talk, but there was none to talk to, literally. Gone are the days of those chatting programs that offer random people to chat with. I miss these old days, they definitely filled such a gap in my social life (which barely exists). Having a random chat like now on social media would sound more like stalking.  Nevertheless, I have to keep this isolation for the time being because I need to sustain some mental peace and health away from the family. They say to surround yourself with good vibes and positive people, and I just can't stop wondering how this is possible at all? I can't find it, I can't reach it, and I don't even know where it lies. All I know is that I just wish I had my own place, somewhere far, far away…

Sisters…

I'm posting this late, I know. But things were forced upon me actually. I've tried to finish it for Thursday but I was struck with some ailment (stomach bug probably) that kept me awry and exhausted (more than before) most of the time. Luckily though it all happened after I've already finished my post for my Arabic blog (phew!). Anyway, as I've mentioned in the previous posts, I've been working on some macro trials lately and I've already posted some pictures previously, so this one is actually a continuation of this trend.

Sisters

After trying to shoot some macro outside in the open, and without a speedlite even, I've decided to take a step further and actually do it indoors. One of the reasons that I don't like doing macro indoors, specifically with plants, is that I would most likely need to chop or pick something to work with indoors. These pots are quite heavy and dirty so picking them inside is not an option at all! However, for art's sake, I've decided to break "some" of my principles this time…

粉红手指
(the pink finger)

So, for starters, the first question to answer was: How am I going to let he flower stand. The bougainvillea flower is quite small and the inner parts are, of course, even smaller. The solution came about in the end with (drums): … a can of PRINGLES! Yes.
Unfortunately, I didn't shoot the setting as i would do usually (with phone) as i work in a hurry a bit because with such flowers, I guess things would go pale quickly and I have to do whatever I can, racing time. I've just pierced a hole into the plastic cover of the can and let the stem of the flower go through it and that's it! 

Details Oriented

In this trial, as far as i remember, my trials to shoot at 5X ratio (or 5:1), using reversed Voitgländer 20mm lens and some extension tubes, all failed. Naturally, since I wasn't using a rail yet at this point. So, the rest of the shoot proceeded with extension tubes and my trusted Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens. Since the shooting is indoors (which actually is still slightly shaky because of the AC breeze!) but I was a bit free to shoot in HDR, without a speedlite of course. Both, The Pink Finger and Details Oriented are shot in HDR, but each has a different story, since each was shot in a different extension tube. Shooting objects or scenes in HDR gives a wide variety of choices for creativity that might follow up at a later time even. Here, The Pink Finger was shot using 36mm extension tube and when tone-mapped from HDR, I've tried to make it as normal as possible with a catch of rim light. Meanwhile, Details Oriented was actually a test shot and I didn't quite intend to put it up because it was shot with 20mm extension tube and contained a lot of background elements that were distracting. Later on (weeks after the fact) I've decided to do the HDR for this shot, and crop it tight, and work on suppressing the background as much as possible. I was able to make it pitch black but then I've realized that it might not quite normal that way so I've put down the opacity a bit. When tone-mapped, I've tried to add details via tone-mapping as much as possible (hence the title). Sharpening in the post-processing phase added even more structure to the whole image here. I'm still considering visiting these images now and then and see if I can do more HDR tone-mapping work differently to have different results.

三姐妹 (一)
(three sisters 1)

Then comes the part where I stopped using HDR bracketing and started to work with the speedlite to have more of a dramatic look. At this level I've returned back to using the 36mm extension tube and tried to get around the flower to find a special angle of some sort. The result was a series of 3 shots, of the same scene, but with change in the light directions. I've called it the Three Sisters after the three stems (or stamens) at the center.

三姐妹 (二)
(three sisters 2)

三姐妹 (三)
(three sisters 3)

Interestingly, out of these three, the first and the last had greater number of likes (specially the first) than the second. I'm guessing because there is some element of darkness and contrast in them more than the bright second version in the series. Worth noting here also that shots were taken at f/22 (maximum) and yet the petal in at the center in the background is slightly out of focus (as I've set the focus on the front stamen mainly). In the macro world, this is normal, and this is why focus stacking is used even with large f-numbers such as f/11 or f/16. These two values are advisable usually rather than using the max of f/22 because most lenses got their "sweet spot" for the sharpest image and least diffraction or chromatic aberration around these values, and as it can be seen, the depth of field is considerably shallow even at f/22. At this point, I didn't care about these elements at the back but my main interest was the stamen at the front, but if I was to take everything into focus, then I'd definitely need to do focus stacking (which I've tried later but that's for another post to come, hopefully).

At this point, I've finished the "experiment" but there had been other trials with this set, like shooting at 3.2X or even 5X but I'd call them a fail really, so no need to post them now. On the other hand, I think I will still check this folder to re-check the images (specially test shots) to see if they have some potential, and also to re-work the HDR brackets I've shot already and tone-map them in different ways, if possible.

Finale

At this level, I'm trying hard to push my creative juices forward a bit. Ironically, though I want to focus on using my DSLR, I often find myself switching to my phone because it is in my hand most of the time right now (starting with this habit around the time of doing my retirement procedures). I've also remembered a project or two that I was supposed to do and finish in 2021 and totally forgot about them. Let's see if I can just put my mind (and mood) into these things and finish them for good! Meanwhile, I also need to think of something to do for the Arabic Language Day on December 18ᵗʰ.

My physical health is recovering a bit right now after rounds of bloating and diarrhea, topping that with a tearing mental stress caused mainly by the people in this house. I think it is time for me to give up hope in fixing things here and talk about things are go wrong in this house; It's fruitless, and putting more stress on my back and unnecessarily causing more mental ailments, more than what I do have to deal with already. I guess this calls for more isolation in my room and to learn how to not give a damn, even when this house collapses altogether. Not sure where I'm heading to, but I do need a long rest, for sure… and a "home".