single photos snowflake 3 IMG_2633abpew

Hi Gregory & Verena,

  Wonderful image with beautiful details.  Take care, Patsy

Very, very nice. You got it before it started to melt and you also got it cold enough to have a nice crystaline structure. What's really cool is that the flake doesn't appear broken. It's irregular shape has a nice balance to it. What magnification were you at with the MP-E? I see you're at f10. Did you stack this or is it 1 shot?

I've been working on snowflake shots this winter with the same lens so I like to see what others achieve and look at the process. Have you tried to use lighting to get some color in the structures? This type of photography is harder than it looks. Well done.

Best Wishes,

Laura

A really beautiful image! Laura confirms my idea that it mustn't be easy to shoot snowflakes.

Best regards,

Alain

Thanks, Patsy and Alain!

Laura is right - this is not easy :)  I'll post a how I did it soon. This is one shot, with a lot of cleaning up. I'm going to try stacking next time.

Thanks!

Greg

Laura et al.

OK- I'll include some shots of the set up. As you can see, not fancy. This is not my original idea.You can see this for much better shots and a funky way of using an old camera and backward lens to get results.   http://chaoticmind75.blogspot.ru/2013/08/my-technique-for-snowflakes-shooting.html

I had the 65, so could forego the funkyness.  Anyway, I used glass held up by the feet of an upside down stool on our dog house on the front porch. I found that it had to be below 25 f for the flakes to remain frozen on the glass. I wore vinyl gloves to protect my hands a little - it helps! I focused approx. at highest mag.- 5x- and tried to get the lens as parallel as possible to the glass to reduce dof problems. I found that f10 or 11 worked best for dof - at 2.8, even with things this small, too much was out of focus. I had a piece of white paper or foam board on the stool bottom, under the glass. I used an off camera flash and found that bouncing it off the white produced the best results. But you can also try different places - I took around ten shots of each flake. One note-when it seems it is snowing big flakes - it isn't - those are just bunches of flakes stuck together.

It's tricky to find one intact flake all by itself. So, keep trying. At this mag., there is a lot of junk around the flake- so I ended up making a separate layer with the gradient tool set to the bg color of the original then placed it on top of the flake layer and erased around the flake to clean up the bg- seemed to be fastest (though tedious) way. I then adjusted in levels till edges cleared up some. Then sharpened in filter>sharpening>smart sharpen till looks ok.  Then again in Perfect effects 8  sharpening>detail finder. Then (save) then in last sharpening in web sharpener, latest version.

You can see I set the camera as close as possible to the glass and still able to get focus at full mag. Then used the adjusting guide on the tripod for fine adjusting and finally the lens focus (actually mag adjusting) for best clarity.

Can't think of anything else. It was fun and this is the best use I've been able to get out of this lens. I did try stacking, but I couldn't see much difference in quality to warrant the time spent.

Cheers!

G

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the original image before processing

Yes, this all looks and sounds so familiar.;-)) I usually work on the front porch. Your set up looks a bit more wind protected. That temperature is critical. I've found that much above 29 degrees the flakes are quite "grainy" and they look pretty in the hair, but not for this purpose. I'm currently using a slatted wooden crate. I usually use f10. I've found that 3x at f10 is a real sweet spot with that lens, everything after that presents unique challenges. At 5x I still use f10.  I abandoned the idea of stacking the snowflakes. They can change so much in so little time.

For lighting I've not had success with a flash, though I admit to being flash challenged. I blow things out, get cold, and switch gears. I got an idea for lighting from this thread http://photo.net/nature-photography-forum/00VOXC I got some small dollar store lights and put colored cellophane on them. I don't get a lot of light, but it angles in and makes for interesting effect. Otherwise I use ambient light. We also have a lab jack and it really helps when collecting flakes on plant material (a method that eliminates problems with glass, but presents a whole different set)

Your post work is more detailed, but you're getting a better/different result. You're sharpening differently and at more steps in the process. Yes, the glass is covered with schmutz and full of imperfections that really show up at these magnifications. We're doing similar, but slightly different things to deal with the background.

The few times we had cold enough temps to do this it was quite windy and conditions became unmanageable. I had 1 session with beginners success. You've got much nicer flakes than I saw all winter. Glad you were able to make the best of them.

Thanks so much for sharing the fun and the details. It's one way to embrace a crazy winter.

Best and Warm Regards,

Laura

Laura,

Thanks, I'll check out the link. Interesting about the colored light. As far as flash, I had to try several times till flash wasn't too strong, or weak. If you can set the strength of the flash in manual mode, it helps to set it a little weaker. I forgot to say I also set the camera to lock up mirror and use a remote shutter control  and 2 second delay to minimize camera shake. By using a lower setting on the flash, you can get several shots quite rapidly (since it recovers quicker) before something changes with the flake-- of course, all that is passed now - spring is here  ::)))

G

I changed color in pp

Hi,

Spring????? Pleeeeease!

I also use mirror lock up and a cable release. It's pretty standard for my macro set up. I'm putting some finishing touches on a flake taken a couple weeks ago. I'll have it out for review this weekend. You'll see how I've used the lights in this as my results are very different from those in the link. Unfortunately mine was starting to melt, so I took my best shot. I've got another in my Ice folder that was collected on plant material and shot at 3x. I'll probably have more chances before winter ends here.

Wishing you all a crocus in your future,

Laura

Thank you all so much for that most informative interchange of idea's and methods.

The results are quite astounding and reflect the care and attention to detail that has been merticulously maintained.

I don't think it's something I'd try myself, but it is interesting to see how it's done, an of course I enjoy seeing the results!

Best Regards

Alf