Beatsy wrote: I'd really like that antennae to appear to poke out of the screen.

That's exactly how it looks to me - very effective. Was going to remark on it even before I saw your comment.

Admin edit [rjl]: to fix quote tags

Ah, great stuff. This reminds me of a good article which did the rounds a few years back. It's aimed at high-end video users but the issue is the same - essentially to make digital colour appear natural we need to decouple saturation from luminosity. The conclusions are more concerned with highlight...

Somebody said to me that I ought to think about selling these images. I wondered if any of you discuss on here how to do that? Do you have reason to think they know what they are talking about? There seems to be a general perception among the uninformed that any half-decent photo is a potential gol...

:lol: Very good Michael! Although we need to see the ends really or it could be a reef knot... sailors duffle bag would never have loose ends to tie on rope as you just pull the bag open as far as loop already tied, to close your bag you would pull the loop, then you would tie this knot to lock it t...

Errr, but the knot pictured is not a thief knot, it's a figure of eight.

I've been sailing 35 years and climbing for almost as long. My first proper job was doing research into knot strengths for the health and safety executive. But don't take my word for it, just google it.

Very nice image. just a little bit of info? this is called a thief knot? stems from sailing days when sailors would tie up their duffle bags with this knot so they could tell if any one had been in the bag. No, this is a figure-of eight knot. Usually used as a stopper to prevent a sheet or halyard ...

Lou Jost wrote:Are you really shooting at f/11 as the last picture of the lens suggests?

I've no experience using tube lenses but I would have assumed you would focus it at or near infinity too. Your Olympus 200m looks to be nearer its close focus limit.

Many thanks for the encouragement folks!

I'm not 100% happy with the retouching but it sounds like I got away with it...

Not had much time for photography this spring, but saw this grass in the garden and couldn't resist.



Sony A7, Zuiko 38mm f/3.5 @~f/5, Mag 3x, Single Ikea Jansjo + diffuser, 23 images stacked in Zerene.

Some good ideas (from a pro) for reflectors here: https://blog.mingthein.com/2012/03/07/w ... g-serious/

Johan, the presenter is George McGavin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGavin

He's one of the better BBC presenters - a gneuine expert.

Charles, Rik, many thanks for your help and encouragement. I've now got a much clearer idea of what direction I need to be going in, and what I can and can't achieve - just what I needed at this stage. Hopefully I'll get back to you soon with some better images.

Many thanks for the advice. Here's a tighter crop of the problem area. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8290108/covers/Crab_DM%2BPM.jpg I've actually had another go at retouching this using the Dmap + Pmax for edges approach, which is definitely an improvement. The joint in the right claw is stil...

I'm not sure what you have in mind for preprocessing. Again, I'm just thinking out loud really, apologies for the half-formed braindump. My approach from traditional photography has been to try and get the starting files looking as correct as possible, but it struck me that, as most of the file wil...

Adam, As far as abrupt transitions from "sharp" to "out-of-focus" the idea of shooting a starting and ending image at a much smaller aperture can be quite effective. Unfortunately some of the optics used for high magnification stacking will not have adjustable apertures. You often need to compose w...