Macro Set-up for Focus Stacking
I have been fascinated by Macro ever since I started digital photography, partly because it takes you to places you wouldn’t normally go and shows you things that you wouldn’t normally see. After my first successful attempts at Macro Photography, I spent a great deal of time reading a lot about it and experimenting with different set-ups, in order to see how close I can get using the equipment available on the market and keeping the post-processing relatively simple. During that quest the word that was constantly coming up is ‘focus stacking’ and, as most Macro photographers would agree, in order to achieve very good results you will need to learn how to stack exposures at some point of your Macro exploration. This post will describe different kinds of Macro set-ups I have personally tested and discuss both their pros and cons. Finally, I will describe a set-up I’m currently using, which produces images you can see below.
Long Exposure Photography (inside a car)
Following a recent trip to the mountains with a friend of mine, I decided to write about long exposure photography again. This time, however, realised in a different and rather tight shooting location.
HDR Panorama
Ever since I started developing a strong interest in panoramic photography, I also became interested in exploring HDR photography. One day these two finally came together and I decided to capture my first genuine HDR equirectangular panorama. It was not easy but I got there eventually and I’d like to share my thoughts with other panoramic and HDR photography enthusiasts. This post will guide you through the process of capturing a genuine HDR equirectangular panorama and will discuss the issues related to both the equipment as well as workflow. If you are not familiar with panoramic or HDR photography, please read my previous posts: Equirectangular Panorama and HDR from a single RAW
Peirce Quincuncial Projection.
This week I’ve decided to experiment with the Peirce Quincuncial projection. In simple terms, this is a projection which is capable of projecting an equirectangular panorama onto a square. It’s similar to a stereographic projection as both of them represent a 360° field of view. The only difference between them is that a stereographic projection will produce a spherical image whereas Peirce Quincuncial will project the final image onto a square. If you are new to panoramic photography, please familiarise yourself with my previous posts on Equirectangular Panorama as you will need one to follow this step-by-step tutorial.
Photoshop CS5 Merge to HDR plug-in
Ever since my taste for HDR photography started to develop, I’ve always used Photomatix Pro and thought that it’s all I will ever need to process my HDR images. Recently, however, I have started experimenting with Photoshop CS5 Merge to HDR plug-in and the results can be seen below.
Shutter Experiments 