Lichens in December

Images of undisturbed subjects in their natural environment. All subject types.

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Troels
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Lichens in December

Post by Troels »

After a few attempts I got my first successfull results with automatic focus bracketing with my new Olympus E-M5 II and 60 mm macro lens.
Both pictures taken with tripod in natural environment and natural llight.

Those Cladonia are notoriously difficult to determine to species. Any help is welcome.

Image
Stack of 40 exp. at f:3.5 and step size 2. Full size at Flickr

I don't know whoo decorated the stems with red caps just before christmass, but it looks funny.

If you like a challenge you could try to find the collembola. I have seen four. But you will need the full size picture.

Image
Stack of 50 exp. at f:3.5 and step size 2. Full size at Flickr

The sun is low in the sky a few days after winter solstice making an interesting lighting. I added som adjustments of curves, contrast and white balance.
Not sure I hit the right balance.
Comments are welcome.
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
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MarkSturtevant
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Post by MarkSturtevant »

Always interesting!
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

Very nice. You do seem to have a nice variety of lichens to choose from too. They all look the same round here :( I clearly need to look in different places.

Troels
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Post by Troels »

Thanks to both of you!

Beatsy, remember to bring your Pentax Papilio. Makes it easier to spot the tiny differenses.
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
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Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

Troels wrote: Beatsy, remember to bring your Pentax Papilio. Makes it easier to spot the tiny differenses.
Funny you should say that, I did forget to take them on the last couple of photo walks. Not a habit yet.

Coincidentally, I remembered to carry them while taking a long, circuitous walk to a social event this evening, where I showed them to a friend. He was so impressed, he ordered a pair right there (via smartphone)! They sell themselves!

Troels
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Post by Troels »

The sun forced me out again today.

I had to try a few stacks more. The cold weather is not a great problem when you can make a focus bracketing of 50 shots in 5 sec.

Both stacks are around 1:1 on 4/3 and slightly cropped (FoV around 15mm).

Image
Full size at Flickr

When the small "trumpets" grow up they start to grow small "mushrooms" along the edge of the "trumpet". A funny way of multiplication.

Image
Full size at Flickr

No more pictures untill next year!
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
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leonardturner
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Post by leonardturner »

An impressive collection of images! A question: can you shoot with automated focus bracketing at a constant pre-set ISO, or does the camera default to higher settings in order to shoot the sequence so quickly? I have an older less expensive Olympus that loses quality in its automated stacks by doing that; perhaps an upgrade is in order!

Leonard

Troels
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Post by Troels »

Thanks Leonard,
I understand your question. And I was exagerating the speed of making the focus bracketing.

For some of my stacks I used aperture f:5.6 and ISO 200. That resulted sometimes in shutter speeds of up to 1 whole sec. Of course the time to complete a bracketing series with 50 exposures under these conditions will be much longer than the 5 sec. I mentioned. That is only possible with best light conditions and still just a guess. I did not really test it, but I know the camera shoots with up to 11 frames pr. sec. in auto focus bracketing mode. Of course long exposure times will add to this.

The answer is: With focus bracketing you can set everything as you want (except using Art-filters, High Resolution and HDR).
Using in-camera Focus Stacking is very different. The number of pictures is limited and many settings are overrided by the program.

I did not study the details, because I always prefer to do the stacking myself with Zerene Stacker.

Troels
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
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Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

The main bottlenecks in the speed of Olympus' automatic focus-bracketing are the camera's buffer size and the write-speed of the card. The first shots go very fast. Later ones in a deep stack go more slowly because the buffer is full. Using a faster card significantly speeds the stacks.

santiago
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Post by santiago »

Very nice pictures.
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Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

I should add that the newest Olympus camera (OM1 version) has a big buffer with room for 35 shots, so any stack of 35 or less photos should be shot nearly instantly, depending on shutter speed of course. Note: I do not have this camera, only the PEN F, so I cannot test this deduction.

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