dragon, damsel, and a focus stack

BeardedChick

Friendly little red dragon from yesterday. Slight crop.



Blue damselfly from today. I'm trying changing my flash settings to not make as many hotspots. This is my first halfway successful focus stacked shot (just two images). :clap Moderate crop - but the stacked image had a LOT of pixels to choose from so I removed some of the rock.



Another damsel in a different robe. Lighting is not too hot overall, but is there a way to avoid hotspots on the eye??? I switched to 100 ISO from 200 for all the shots today, and I think the colors are very nice... Uncropped.

BeardedChick

ps. forgot to add, C&C welcome and is very helpful, so let loose! Also, any help for changing my lighting setup is welcome. Currently am using an L bracket with a mini ball, and the 430 mounted on the ball. Diffuser is a Lumiquest mini softbox.

clicketf3

Very nice job.I like the red one the best- full body shot.

Lord Vetinari

Lovely series of shots - esp like #2 - the stack worked well !

Very hard to avoid hot spots on dragon or damsel eyes - you will either get them from the sun or the flash (or both as in the dragon shot). Getting the diffuser head as near to the end of the lens as possible helps as does adding more diffusion. Both help spread the light more so you get a larger but duller hotspot. Using a CPL filter in natural bright light shots also helps reduce the intensity of the spots but does not completley get rid of them.

Brian V.

BeardedChick

Thanks very much, Brian. I think I have a good quality CPL somewhere that I will try... I'd like to have a filter on the lens anyway. It seems that a great deal of macro work is just experimenting with light. :-)