Swift River Cruiser exuvia (face-head)

The following image is a focus-stacked composite of three photos, focused on the left eye, right eye, and both eyes respectively.

27 May 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia, face-head)

Tech Tips

The dragonfly exuvia was photographed against a pure white background (255, 255, 255) using the “Meet Your Neighbours” (MYN) technique.

Several photos were taken using my Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital camera, a Kenko 12mm extension tube, and Laowa 25mm Ultra Macro Lens, set for f/4.0 (the sweet spot for this lens) at ~3.0x magnification.

A Godox TT685C external flash was used to backlight the background (a piece of translucent white plastic) and a Godox TT685F external flash was used as a key light on the right side of the subject. The flash was triggered wirelessly by a Godox X2TC.

Check the EXIF/IPTC info for the photograph for complete details regarding photo gear and camera settings.

Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 was used to create a focus-stacked composite image that was edited using Apple Aperture.

The Backstory

A Swift River Cruiser dragonfly (Macromia illinoiensis) exuvia was collected on 27 May 2017 along the Potomac River at Riverbend Park in Fairfax County, Virginia USA. This individual is a female.

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

When is close too close?

A Swift River Cruiser dragonfly (Macromia illinoiensis) exuvia was collected on 27 May 2017 along the Potomac River at Riverbend Park in Fairfax County, Virginia USA. This individual is a female. The prominent horn on the head — a key field mark for exuviae from Family Macromiidae (Cruisers) — is noticeable in the following photo, although maybe not recognizable.

27 May 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia)

This photo is one of several test shots using “The Macroscope,” my nickname for the Laowa 25mm Ultra Macro Lens. The Laowa lens was mounted on my Canon 5D Mark II digital camera with a 12mm Kenko extension tube between the lens and camera body.

My new Laowa LED Ring Light was mounted on the front of the lens, powered by an Anker PowerCore+ 26800 PD 45W battery. The Laowa LED Ring Light was used to light the subject. A Sunpak LED-160 Video Light was used as a focusing aid. A Godox TT685C external flash was used to backlight a translucent white plastic background, using the “Meet Your Neighbours” technique. The flash was triggered wirelessly by a Godox X2TC.

The image is full-frame (5616 by 3744 pixels), that is, uncropped. The lens was set for f/4 (the “sweet spot” for the lens) at 4x magification. The camera was set for single point focus and spot metering, centered on the right eye of the exuvia.

Look closely at a full-size version of the image. At this magnification, the depth of field is very shallow: remnant ommatidia are clearly in focus; most of the image is out of focus.

In order to provide some context for what is shown in the first photo, the last photo shows the entire specimen. The photo gear used to take the shot is specified in a previous blog post.

27 May 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia)

When is close too close?

Close is too close when most of the subject is unrecognizable. At 4x magnification, it’s essential to use focus stacking to create a composite image.

The bigger take-away from this test shot is the Laowa LED Ring Light seems to work fairly well, albeit a sample size of one.

Related Resources

• Laowa LED Ring Light for 25mm Ultra Macro Lens
• Anker PowerCore+ 26800 PD 45W
• As promised…

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

More experimentation with tethered shooting

Oh no! I have become the blogger who cried wolf. Yes, I’m guilty of over-promising and under-delivering. I promise to do better. Oops, I did it again! (Queue Britney Spears…)

Why tethered shooting?

In case you’re wondering what piqued my interest in tethered shooting, I was bored. I had figured out all there is to know about non-tethered shooting so I needed a new challenge. Not!

Tethered shooting enables me to quickly check composition, exposure, and focus, to name a few advantages of tethered versus non-tethered shooting — on a larger screen than the LCD on the back of my cameras.

Bear in mind, I don’t want to edit the photo files using my laptop computer (Apple 11″ MacBook Air) — I prefer to use my desktop computer (Apple 24″ iMac) for photo editing.

Latest testing

The following photos were taken by tethering my Fujifilm X-T3 digital camera to an Apple 11″ MacBook Air computer, via a TetherTools USB cable. FUJIFILM Tether Shooting Plug-in PRO was used to save JPG files to a folder on the desktop of my MacBook Air; in turn, the JPG images were displayed in Adobe Lightroom. Both JPG and RAF files were saved to one of two memory cards in the X-T3.

27 May 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia)

Notice the difference in way these two photos were lighted. Both shots were taken using a single off-camera flash. The position of the flash resulted in more- or less dramatic light. Each shot shows something better than the other, so I was unable to choose a clear favorite. What’s your preference?

27 May 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia)

Tips and Tricks

Oh yeah, the tips and tricks I have been promising are still in the pipeline. I made some screen grabs today to illustrate the process of tethered shooting. Turns out I overlooked a critical setting so all of the graphics are useless. Doh! Can you say “Do over”?

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

As promised…

A rare weekend blog post

The following photo was taken by tethering my Fujifilm X-T3 digital camera to an Apple 11″ MacBook Air computer, via a TetherTools USB cable. Fujifilm X Aquire (free) was used to save JPG files to a folder on the desktop of my MacBook Air; both JPG and RAF files were saved to one of two memory cards in the X-T3.

Apple “Preview” was used to view the JPG files saved to my MacBook Air. Looking at larger versions of the photos than can be seen on the X-T3 LCD enabled me to position the exuvia exactly as I wanted.

Notice the left eye is overexposed slightly (as well as the farthest tip of the left middle leg), probably caused by positioning the subject too close to the white background. Hey, it’s been a while since I did much studio macro photography — I need to play myself into game shape!

More details, including some of the tips and tricks I promised, will be provided in my regularly-scheduled blog post on Monday, 10 August 2020. Please stay tuned!

27 May 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia)

The Backstory

A Swift River Cruiser dragonfly (Macromia illinoiensis) exuvia was collected on 27 May 2017 along the Potomac River at Riverbend Park in Fairfax County, Virginia USA. This individual is a female.

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

First foray into tethered shooting

My first foray into tethered shooting occurred on 01 August 2020. Although I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, I was able to successfully connect my Fujifilm X-T3 digital camera to an Apple 11″ MacBook Air computer, via a TetherTools USB cable. The screen on my laptop shows the display for the FUJIFILM Tether Shooting Plug-in PRO (Mac) for Adobe Lightroom.

Screen display for 11″ MacBook Air.

I will backfill this post with more details about the hardware and software used to capture the following image, taken a few days after “first light.” In the meantime, I’m SO LATE in publishing my blog post for Wednesday I just want to put something out there STAT. Please revisit this post at a later time to read the updated version.

27 May 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia)

A Swift River Cruiser dragonfly (Macromia illinoiensis) exuvia was collected on 27 May 2017 along the Potomac River at Riverbend Park in Fairfax County, Virginia USA. This individual is a female. Notice the prominent horn on the head, a key field mark for exuviae from Family Macromiidae (Cruisers).

Ignore the bad background and quick-and-dirty lighting — this photo isn’t so much about making a good macro photo as it is the process used to make it. More later…I promise!

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

American Rubyspot damselfly (male)

During a photowalk with Michael Powell in Fairfax County, Virginia USA, Mike spotted an American Rubyspot damselfly (Hetaerina americana) perched facing the Potomac River. This individual is a male, as indicated by his red coloration, hamules, and terminal appendages.

All of the photos in the following gallery look similar, although there are subtle differences.

The first photo is the “record shot” for this individual, that is, “get a shot, any shot.” Actually, this one turned out to be a good photo! The camera was set for an aperture of f/5.6 for all shots in the gallery. This viewing angle provided the clearest look at his terminal appendages given the relatively shallow depth-of-field.

08 JUN 2020 | Fairfax County, VA | American Rubyspot (male)

The next photo shows a better look at the damselfly’s metallic ruby red face. Handsome!

08 JUN 2020 | Fairfax County, VA | American Rubyspot (male)

Finally, I just like the look of the “light” in the last photo. Dark and moody.

08 JUN 2020 | Fairfax County, VA | American Rubyspot (male)

Related Resource: American Rubyspot – a blog post by Michael Powell

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

MYN – Hits and misses

This blog post might have been called “New ways of doing the same old thing.” In other words, experimenting with new techniques for shooting sets of macro photos of a familiar  subject and new variations for creating focus-stacked composite images.

80mm (120mm, 35mm equivalent) | f/16 | 1/200s | ISO 160 | 0 ev

Tech Tips

In-camera focus bracketing was used to shoot a photo set with my Fujifilm X-T3 mirrorless digital camera and Fujinon 80mm macro lens (coupled with 11mm and 16mm extension tubes for a little additional magnification).

The camera lens was focused manually on the closest point on the face of the subject. The shutter button was pressed one time; the first photo was taken after a 10-second timer elapsed, then the focus point advanced automatically from the initial focus point to a far point on the subject in the background of the photo.

RAW FILE CONVERTER EX 3.0 was used to batch-convert the resulting 50 images from Fujifilm RAF files to TIFF files. Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 was used to create five sub-stacks (10 photos per sub-stack) that were combined into one focus-stacked composite image. The final image was edited using Apple Aperture.

Analyzing the results

Most of the “misses” were self-inflicted.

For example, minimal effort was invested in arranging the subject and lighting the scene. Generally speaking, better lighting results in better photos.

Some trial and error is required in order to determine the correct focus bracketing settings for a given combination of camera and lens. The following settings were used to shoot the photo set for the focus-stacked composite image featured in this post: Frames = 50; Step = 10; Interval = 4 s.

Step size is a number from one (1) to 10, with one being the smallest increment and 10 being the largest. Although a step size of 10 enabled the camera to cover the subject completely from front-to-back in 50 frames, selecting the coarsest step increment might have resulted in small “focus gaps” that are noticeable in a few places on the full-size version of the composite image.

I cabled a Godox PROPAC PB960 to the Godox TT685C external flash unit that is used to backlight the white background. The power pack enables faster flash recycle times and increases the number of times the flash can be fired before its AA batteries run down. That was a big “hit!”

I didn’t realize the radio flash trigger was set for a power ratio of 1/4 +0.7 — that’s 2/3 of a stop slower than my preferred setting of 1/2 +0.3 that usually results in the pure white background (255, 255, 255) that is a goal of the “Meet Your Neighbours” (MYN) technique. That was a big “miss” I was able to correct in post-processing, although increasing the exposure enough to blow out the background might have degraded image quality a little.

One of many reasons the Fujifilm X-Series cameras are so popular is their retro look and feel, including lots of buttons and dials on the camera body. That’s good and bad: it’s good to be able to adjust many camera settings using either an external button or dial rather than navigating through menus in the camera’s firmware; it’s bad that it’s easy to change camera settings accidentally.

I must have rotated the back dial slightly because the shutter speed was set for 1/200 s rather than the camera sync speed of 1/250 s. Using a faster shutter speed can result in sharper images.

Related Resources

• Focus bracketing using Fujifilm X-T3
• RAW FILE CONVERTER EX 3.0
• Macromia illinoiensis exuvia (face-head)
• Macromia illinoiensis exuvia (face-head) redux

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

Macromia illinoiensis exuvia (face-head) redux

A Swift River Cruiser dragonfly (Macromia illinoiensis) exuvia was collected, with permission from park staff, on 27 May 2017 along the Potomac River at Riverbend Park in Fairfax County, Virginia USA.

27 MAY 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia)

The preceding image shows the remnant ommatidia clearly.

From this viewpoint, it’s harder to see the prominent horn on the face that is a key field mark for larvae/exuviae in the Family Macromiidae (Cruisers). The base of the triangular horn is located above the labium (face mask), between the long, thin antennae; the apex of the triangle is pointed toward the viewer.

It’s easier to see the horn in the featured photo in my last blog post.

Tech Tips

The subject was photographed against a pure white background (255, 255, 255) using the “Meet Your Neighbours” (MYN) technique.

20 photos of the specimen were taken using 2.5x magnification at an aperture of f/4; in-camera focus peaking was used to highlight select areas in each photo. RAW FILE CONVERTER EX 3.0 was used to convert Fujifilm RAF files to TIFF files. Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 was used to create a focus-stacked composite image that was edited using Apple Aperture.

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

Macromia illinoiensis exuvia (face-head)

The following photograph of a Swift River Cruiser dragonfly (Macromia illinoiensis) exuvia shows a prominent horn on the face that is a key field mark for larvae/exuviae in the Family Macromiidae (Cruisers).

The specimen was collected, with permission from park staff, on 27 May 2017 along the Potomac River at Riverbend Park in Fairfax County, Virginia USA.

27 MAY 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia)

Tech Tips

The subject was photographed against a pure white background (255, 255, 255) using the “Meet Your Neighbours” (MYN) technique. The specimen was posed on its dorsal side, so the camera was focused on the face-head-ventral view of the exuvia. The final image was cropped and rotated 180° during post-processing.

10 photos of the specimen were taken using an aperture of f/16; in-camera focus peaking was used to highlight select areas in each photo. RAW FILE CONVERTER EX 3.0 was used to convert Fujifilm RAF files to TIFF files. Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 was used to create a focus-stacked composite image that was edited using Apple Aperture.

Editor’s Note: This blog post is the last installment in what turned out to be a three-part series. The featured focus-stacked composite image is a little closer to what I had in mind when I set up the photo shoot.

1. MYN – Macromiidae larvae/exuviae are horny
2. RAW FILE CONVERTER EX 3.0

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

MYN – Macromiidae larvae/exuviae are horny

A prominent horn on the face is a key field mark for larvae/exuviae in the Family Macromiidae (Cruisers), as shown in the following photograph of a Swift River Cruiser dragonfly (Macromia illinoiensis) exuvia.

The base of the triangular horn is located above the labium (face mask), between the long, thin antennae.

27 MAY 2017 | Riverbend Park | Swift River Cruiser (exuvia)

The specimen was collected, with permission from park staff, on 27 May 2017 along the Potomac River at Riverbend Park in Fairfax County, Virginia USA.

Tech Tips

The subject was photographed against a pure white background (255, 255, 255) using the “Meet Your Neighbours” (MYN) technique. The specimen was posed on its dorsal side, so the camera was focused on the face-head-ventral view of the exuvia. The image was rotated 180° during post-processing.

My vintage 2009 Apple iMac desktop computer is too old to support drivers for importing RAF files from my Fujifilm X-T3 mirrorless digital camera into either Apple Aperture or Adobe Lightroom.

The work-around is to use a free application from Fujifilm that converts RAF files to TIFF files, which can be opened and edited with Aperture and Lightroom. Problem is I’m a big procrastinator and haven’t learned how to use the file converter application, so I simply edited one of the JPGs straight from the camera.

For the most part, the finished image looks fairly good although the eyes are blown out a little to a lot. JPG files have less dynamic range than RAF files so I was unable to recover the blown highlights.

Hmmm, it might be time to buy a new desktop computer!

Post Updates

I finally got around to figuring out how to use the free Fujifilm application to convert RAF files to TIFFs. See my follow-up blog post entitled “RAW FILE CONVERTER EX 3.0” for step-by-step instructions.

10 photos (converted from RAF to TIFF), including the one-off featured in this blog post, were used to create a focus-stacked composite image of the specimen that is a little closer to what I had in mind when I set up the photo shoot.

Copyright © 2020 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.