Isolation Photo Project, Day 19

Last week I saw so many Sourland Mountain wildflowers that I wished I had a macro lens. On Sunday, I rented the Fujinon XF80mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro with the hope that I could revisit some of the trails where I found wildflowers on the weekend. Then, of course, later in the week, the governor and state counties closed all-state and county parks, forests and woods. Then the federal government did the same.

Some of the places where I found wildflowers were inaccessible. But it was too late to cancel the lens rental, which arrived on Thursday. I didn’t even open the box until today.

Linked to Jeff Sinon's Isolation Photo Project.

I’ve lived in this town for 19 years. I know some “secret” spots, places where I can get access to the woods. Areas that are not under federal, state or county jurisdiction. I won’t be telling you where those places are. I visited one such site this afternoon, but the air is too cold, and the flowers have decided to retreat. There is always tomorrow.

Trout Lilly | 10 April, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | Fujinon XF80mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro
Submitted as part of the 100DaysToOffload project.

Satisfaction

Each Wednesday, The Daily Prompt Photo Challenge provides a theme for creative inspiration. Participants take photographs based on their interpretation of the theme, and post them on their blog anytime before the following Wednesday.

Last weekend I attended a macro photography workshop by Don Komerechka hosted by the Princeton Photography Workshop. It was a fun but challenging workshop, and I learned just how much I have yet to learn. I am so far from where I want to be with macro, but with patience and perseverance, and I think I can improve my craft. Water droplet macro -- or in this case, the term "micro" might be more appropriate -- is much harder than any macro photography I have attempted so far. Macros of flowers or insects are all I have tried to date; even those seemed easy compared to the water droplets.

Water Droplet, Macro, Satisfaction
Water Droplet Macro
[exif id="30838"]

Don gave the class a quick primer on focus stacking, a technique I have used a few times with my macro. One excellent tip I learned is that Photoshop's auto-align and auto-blend layers features make it relatively easy to focus-stack capture images.

Macro photography can be time-consuming. Water droplet photography is even more so. Getting the water droplets to be spherical to my satisfaction required a lot of trial and error. And I had a lot of failures. I deleted most of the images I captured that morning. The one included with this post is the best of them.

Water Droplet, Macro, Satisfaction
Water Droplet Macro
[exif id="30839"]

The featured image is a blend of several photos. As you can see, it's flawed in many ways. It's not sharp. The flower that I placed behind the dandelion doesn't appear clearly.

I need more practice.

Each Wednesday, The Daily Prompt Photo Challenge provides a theme for creative inspiration. Participants take photographs based on their interpretation of the theme and post them on their blog anytime before Wednesday.

Macro Moments Challenge #39 - Black and White

#MacroMoments Macro Moments was created by avid macro photographer, Susan Gutterman, to share the beauty of macro photography and learn from others photographers. A new challenge begins on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month. The winner’s photo may be featured on her blog and used as the banner in the announcement for the next challenge.

I had no clue how I was going to approach this challenge. I don't often shoot in black and white. I see in colour. We all do. The real world is full of colour. It's hard for me to imagine how something might look black in white before I shoot it. However, sometimes I'll take a colour image and apply a black and white filter and experiment.

I dropped my son off at his summer job at the Montgomery Friends Farmers' Market and came home get Bhavna. The night before, she had stated that she wanted to visit the Farmers' Market with me. She wanted to see what produce was available. She was still sleeping when I got home. She slept until 10 AM.

While I waited for Bhavna to awaken, I brainstormed ideas for the macro challenge. I noticed the dozens of Asian lilies1 blooming in the garden in the house next door. The house has been unoccupied for several months. The owners bought the house at the high end of our neighbourhood housing market, and when they moved out a few years ago, the market was softer. The house has been rented twice over the last few years, but the most recent tenants vacated a few months ago. The house is currently up for sale.

I set up my tripod, camera, and Nikon with Kenko extension tubes attached to the AF-S Nikkor DX 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6. The sky was overcast all weekend with occasional downpours of rain. Getting everything in focus in the low light of the day was a challenge, but fortunately, there was very little wind. I lowered the aperture to f/22 and even lower — f/32 and bumped up the ISO to 6400.

I fired off a few shots but did not feel what the photos would look like in black and white. I played around with the macro setting and effects settings on the Nikon D5100. I found one setting that simulates "night vision ". That produced black and white JPEG images. I continued shooting, but when I imported it to Adobe Lightroom for processing, I preferred the night vision image's look more than any others.

The only processing is applying a Fuji Neopan 100 Acros film preset. I think it's interesting how the film preset pushed the Lilly to a stark white.

Macro Moments was created by an avid macro photographer Susan Gutterman to share the beauty of macro photography and learn from other photographers. A new challenge begins on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month.


  1. True lilies belong to the genus Lilium and grow from plump scaly bulbs. Asian lilies are true lilies. Daylilies, canna lilies and peace lilies are not lilies.