Polybothris sumptuosa gema II. Edited, image "REDO"

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Charles Krebs
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Polybothris sumptuosa gema II. Edited, image "REDO"

Post by Charles Krebs »

I posted a couple of very similar shots a while ago, but that specimen was missing antennae so no "head shot", and the head is quite spectacular to see. So here is a different specimen. Remarkable color difference. This one had much more green mixed in with the blue.
These seem trickier to photograph than other "jewel" beetles I have tried to photograph.

For some great (intense!) information on structural color, accompanied by SEM images that show the actual cause see:
http://tinyurl.com/4m7fz7r

Edited...
After posting the Lampropepla rotschildi last night I took a look the first image in this post. While parts looked OK (the head) the rest of the image looked... for lack of a better word... "weird". It certainly did not do this beautiful insect justice. So I took another crack at it. For the first post, the insect was placed in an overall "diffusion dome" that was pretty evenly illuminated and as a result there was no surface texture recorded on the highly textured pronotum. Only the pure intense structural iridescent color was recorded. This illustrates the pitfalls of not carefully considering each subject individually when establishing lighting (and also what a couple days of sleep deprivation can do to your judgement :wink:) What works well for quite a wide variety of subjects can fail significantly with others. Here is the new effort. (I've kept a smaller version of the first attempt to show the difference).


Canon 50D. Canon 65mm MP-E. ~1.2X on sensor. 21 images @f/8. Zerene Stacker, DMap.
Image

Here's a smaller version of the first try.
Image

Overlooked because of the color "show" are some of the amazing mechanical features. The third shot is of a ball-joint on one of the legs. It is actually a double ball-joint... one nested in the other. (Reminded me of the big Arca-Swiss Monoball B2 :roll:)

USMCO 10/0.28 M Plan Apo with Nikon tube lens. Canon 50D. 10X on sensor. 177 images, Zerene Stacker.
Image


.... and after a ridiculous number of attempts I think most of the typos have been corrected.... ](*,)
Last edited by Charles Krebs on Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:41 pm, edited 7 times in total.

DQE
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Post by DQE »

Thanks for the remarkable photos! Very dazzling.

Also thanks for the link to the technical article on the color in nature. Every time I see an unusually colored bug I think "I bet that's due to interference or something other than a simple pigment" but I was always lacking in a detailed explanation.

Along this line of discussion, does anyone know if the very brass-appearing thorax seen in some common hoverflies is due to interference, etc or is the thing coated with pure brass metal (grins) as it visually and photographically appears?
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

Barry
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Post by Barry »

Magnificent colours.....
And ditto photographs!!

Barry

eurythyrea
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Post by eurythyrea »

Beautiful images, Charles, you have to know that jewel beetles are my favorite family of beetles and I know the difficulty of lighting when shooting them. In the nature you'll get the best results in overcast, in direct sunlight it's impossible to take pleasing shots. In studio if I overdo the diffusing, will get weird unnatural looking (such as your first attempt). So, this changed one is really accomplished!

Just a note: the valid name of this species is Polybothris sumptuosa gemma, with double "m". It's clear the name means "gem" :)

Tomatito
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Post by Tomatito »

very nice Charles..You have some defects in black area on your first photo..when you put a brightness up you will see it... I would avoid it by putting more black levels :)
Tomas Rak

Chris S.
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Post by Chris S. »

Charlie, more wonderful work from you--I usually don't comment on your images, because when you post images, I just expect them to be outstanding. Sort of like not bothering to be surprised when Lance Armstrong wins the Tour de France.
Tomatito wrote:very nice Charles..You have some defects in black area on your first photo..when you put a brightness up you will see it... I would avoid it by putting more black levels :)
Tomas, I'd like to understand your point better, since your strong post-processing skills and diligence are evident in the excellent images you post. After reading what you wrote, I pulled Charlie's first photo into Photoshop and increased the brightness to a ridiculous level. Upon doing so, I did indeed see some things otherwise invisible in the black area. But what I don't understand is why Charlie or anybody else should take pains to create an image that can withstand this level of manipulation without showing a difference in the black areas. If your own images weren't so good, I might shrug my shoulders and move on--but your images are outstanding, and so I suspect you have much to teach and I respect what you post. So would you please tell me what am I missing?

Cheers,

--Chris

--edited for typo
--edited to correct a poorly-worded phrase that may have given a very unintended negative tone
Last edited by Chris S. on Mon Feb 28, 2011 5:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

I think the advantage to doing what Tomas says is that the image will look better to people with potentially terribly setup monitors. I sometimes do this although I wouldn't bother too much with the background in that shot...

Charles Krebs
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Post by Charles Krebs »

Chris,

I think Tomas and you are both correct. :smt017

The first picture, as originally posted had a black background that, if viewed on what is (IMO... at least for my purposes) an overly bright monitor showed noise and stacking "residue". When I saw his comment I checked that out and subsequently dropped the background to a level where you would need a blindingly bright monitor to see anything amiss. (Sneaky little move on my part. :wink:)

But it does bring up a good point. I have my monitor calibrated to a luminance of just about 100 cd/m^2, D65, gamma 2.2. In my working conditions this provides me with a view that is a good match for my Epson 4000 printer, and it also seems to be good for internet image preparation as well. Current LCD monitors are capable of being set up at much higher contrast, brightness and luminance levels. I suspect many people run their monitors much differently than mine. So what seems an adequately "black" background on one monitor (thus "hiding" any issues, might not be the case when viewed on a different monitor.

Most of the time, when the picture has an expansive black or dark background, and the image is going to be posted on-line I'll do the following check (precisely because there is such a range of monitors out there):

I'll add a "levels" adjustment layer and grossly over-adjust it to lighten the background. Any editing, noise or stacking artifacts become glaringly obvious. Adjustment or clean-up is done as needed and then the adjustment layer is deleted. This wasn't done with the image Tomas referenced. I would have picked up what he saw right away.
Last edited by Charles Krebs on Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

dmillard
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Re: Polybothris sumptuosa gema II. Edited, image "REDO&

Post by dmillard »

Charles Krebs wrote:
After posting the Lampropepla rotschildi last night I took a look the first image in this post. While parts looked OK (the head) the rest of the image looked... for lack of a better word... "weird". It certainly did not do this beautiful insect justice. So I took another crack at it. For the first post, the insect was placed in an overall "diffusion dome" that was pretty evenly illuminated and as a result there was no surface texture recorded on the highly textured pronotum. Only the pure intense structural iridescent color was recorded. This illustrates the pitfalls of not carefully considering each subject individually when establishing lighting (and also what a couple days of sleep deprivation can do to your judgement :wink:) What works well for quite a wide variety of subjects can fail significantly with others. Here is the new effort. (I've kept a smaller version of the first attempt to show the difference).
The differences in the images is subtle yet significant. I'm impressed by the outcome of your efforts (and by your perseverance).

David

Tomatito
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Post by Tomatito »

Tomas, I'd like to understand your point better, since your strong post-processing skills and diligence are evident in the excellent images you post. After reading what you wrote, I pulled Charlie's first photo into Photoshop and increased the brightness to a ridiculous level. Upon doing so, I did indeed see some things otherwise invisible in the black area. But what I don't understand is why Charlie or anybody else should take pains to create an image that can withstand this level of manipulation without showing a difference in the black areas. If your own images weren't so good, I'd dismiss your comment--but your images are outstanding, and so I suspect you have much to teach and I respect what you post. So would you please tell me what am I missing?

Cheers,

--Chris

--edited for typo


Chris..the thing is that my monitor is a a bit brighter and I can see some defects in black area..I tried to give a good advice to avoid this for people with monitor like mine :) more black levels will sort it out the situation..
Tomas Rak

DQE
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Post by DQE »

Charles Krebs wrote:Chris,

I think Tomas and you are both correct. :smt017

The first picture, as originally posted had a black background that, if viewed on what is (IMO... at least for my purposes) an overly bright monitor showed noise and stacking "residue". When I saw his comment I checked that out and subsequently dropped the background to a level where you would need a blindingly bright monitor to see anything amiss. (Sneaky little move on my part. :wink:)

But it does bring up a good point. I have my monitor calibrated to a luminance of just about 100 cd/m^2, D65, gamma 2.2. In my working conditions this provides me with a view that is a good match for my Epson 4000 printer, and it also seems to be good for internet image preparation as well. Current LCD monitors are capable of being set up at much higher contrast, brightness and luminance levels. I suspect many people run their monitors much differently than mine. So what seems an adequately "black" background on one monitor (thus "hiding" any issues, might not be the case when viewed on a different monitor.

Most of the time, when the picture has an expansive black or dark background, and the image is going to be posted on-line I'll do the following check (precisely because there is such a range of monitors out there):

I'll add a "levels" adjustment layer and grossly over-adjust it to lighten the background. Any editing, noise or stacking artifacts become glaringly obvious. Adjustment or clean-up is done as needed and then the adjustment layer is deleted. This wasn't done with the image Tomas referenced. I would have picked up what he saw right away.
Some forums include a grayscale stepped exposure image as a part of each thread. This way, if a person can't see the darkest and the lightest steps, they will at least know that their monitor may not be adequate for displaying some photos well.

Just a thought - not sure if others would find this suggestion useful or annoying. Also there would be the issue of asking Rik to include such an image at the top of each thread.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

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Post by Chris S. »

Tomatito wrote:Chris..the thing is that my monitor is a a bit brighter and I can see some defects in black area..I tried to give a good advice to avoid this for people with monitor like mine :) more black levels will sort it out the situation..
Tomas, it all makes sense now--when I looked at the image, Charlie had fixed the issue you brought up. This is why I didn't understand what you were saying--with the image as it is now, no defects in the black areas are visible unless one brightens the image to an extent that looks hideous.

Your advice was good. By the way, in re-reading my question, I see that I chose my words poorly--there seems to be a harsh tone that was in no way intended. I'm sorry if it seemed that way. On the contrary, when it comes to post-processing, you are someone whose advice I do not want to miss. So when you wrote about turning up the brightness in Charlie's image to see defects in the black area, I copied the image to my desktop and tried it for myself. I do similar things with my own images, and in this case I was baffled at the enormous amount of additional brightening I needed to do in order to see any defects. Since your observation came from a guy who is really, really good at post-processing, I felt there was a lesson here that I really wanted to learn, and was failing to get. That's why I asked.

So please keep the advice coming.

Cheers,

--Chris

DQE
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Post by DQE »

Many, perhaps most, current LCD monitors actually only use 6 bits for their pixels even if the original pixel had 8 or even 16 bits of data. Thus, something has to give, and I fear it may be the darker areas, where there simply may not be enough bits per pixel (among other limitations) to properly display these pixels.

Just a couple of cents. Obviously, I can't see other peoples' monitors and don't know what's really going wrong. Hope this line of thought is helpful.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

DQE wrote:Also there would be the issue of asking Rik to include such an image at the top of each thread.
Just offhand, I'd be reluctant to clutter up the pages any more with info that would quickly become irrelevant for each viewer. On the other hand, it might not be unreasonable to put a Sticky post in each gallery, referencing a FAQ thread that contains an appropriate gray scale and some discussion of what it means and how to use it. I don't have time to assemble such a beast right now, but if somebody else feels qualified and motivated, have at it!

--Rik

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Post by rjlittlefield »

Tomatito wrote:You have some defects in black area on your first photo..when you put a brightness up you will see it...
I assume that what Tomatito is talking about are some halos that I would describe as "almost black but slightly brighter than their surroundings", in front of the head and around the antennae. I would not have noticed these by myself, but now that I know they are there, I can just barely see them on the brighter of my two monitors.

From my standpoint, perhaps the most interesting thing about these halos is that I recognize them as looking like DMap halos, left over from using a contrast threshold setting that was just a hair too low. With most backgrounds, such halos would have been obvious in the preview image. But in this case, the residual halos would have been well hidden by the fact that the threshold preview image uses black as an indicator value! I've added an item to the Zerene Stacker "to-do" list, to let the indicator color be chosen by the user.

--Rik

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