Three weeks off yet

[salmobytes 0]

Male and female Salmon Flies.  Male and female Golden Stones.   From underneath it looks like one pattern fits all.  1" inch to 2"  inches long--body only, not counting wing tips.

 

 

 

[Moshup 0]

Nice pics.  I’m sure there are a lot of guys on here that appreciated the quality of these images.

[chugbug27 0]

🖐️

[WWKimba 0]

✋✋

[Jaydub 0]

They have been hatching on the Deschutes for a couple of weeks now. When I was there on the 14th & 15th the cool weather had the adults hunkered down in the brush and rocks. The fish weren't keyed in on the adults yet, but nymph fishing was good.

[salmobytes 0]

No human fatalities have been recorded in the last ten years

 

[skeet3t 0]

Outstanding, detailed photos!!!! Could you share the camera type, lens used and settings, please?

Sci-Fi Movie- Attack of the Salmon Flies!

[feathers5 0]

On 5/19/2021 at 11:27 AM, salmobytes said:

Male and female Salmon Flies.  Male and female Golden Stones.   From underneath it looks like one pattern fits all.  1" inch to 2"  inches long--body only, not counting wing tips.

 

 

 

Great images and I always appreciate bug images, especially these that are so sharp and clear. Thanks

[salmobytes 0]

RE> share camera stuff.

 

This is complex.  I'm not sure how much people really want to know.  I've been working on this for several years.

These are focus stacks.  The camera equipment doesn't matter that much other than to use a macro lens.  I have Nikon 105mm macro and Sony 90mm macro.  Nikon d7000 and Sony A7RIII.  The main thing is a tripod, basement light table two umbrella strobes and one or more slave flashes to fill in shadows.  The lens is separated from the camera with extension tubes, which narrows the depth of field but drastically increases magnification.  This is more than 1:1.  The image in camera is several times bigger than life size.

I shoot a 10 to maybe 30 exposure focus stack with ZereneStacker controlling a stepper motor focusing rail from Cognisys.  The focusing rail physically moves the camera by even increments.  

 

Darktable-cli converts raw images to tif.  ZereneStacker (a second time) examines all 30 *.tif  exposures (not the raws) and makes one composite image using, for each pixel position, that pixel with the most contrast to its neighbors, which is another way of saying "that pixel with the sharpest focus." ...............and throws out all the blurry pixels.

 

Darktable edits the composite tif.   Gimp edits the output from Darktable.  All that software is free and open source except Zerene, which is a couple hundred bucks.  Zerene is a one time purchase rather than a monthly subscription like Photoshop.  HeliconFocus competes with Zerene. I have both.  They are both very good but I like Zerene better.

There are two ways to do stacks.  

1) stepper motor focusing rail moves the camera to change focus, rather than twisting the focus ring on the lens

2) leave the camera in a fixed position and twist the focus ring instead of moving the camera.  This can be done manually with your fingers or with software, if the camera is tethered to a computer and keyboard with USB cables.  I do a little of both.

 

Moving the camera is best for small bugs.  Twisting the focus ring is better for large objects (product photography) or landscapes or architectural photography (real estate photography).

Phew. It helps to have obsessive compulsive stubbornness disease.

 

 

Here (link below) is a bash script (small computer program) I wrote to convert raw images to tif.

Bash runs on Linux and Mac and now Windows too, if you install the Linux Subshell on Windows10

https://montana-riverboats.com/stackit

 

Somebody I electronically met several years ago--here on this forum--is or was real-deal C programmer who gave me some advice about custom video programming with the gstreamer library.  That person  had a lot more experience than me. So although the above will not be interesting or useful to most readers...................it might be useful  to a few.

 

One more thought.  Why bother to shoot in raw and then convert to tif and then (finally) convert to jpeg?  Because jpeg is already edited by the camera.  With jpeg so much image information is already processed and thrown away (jpegs are smaller files) it isn't possible to do much editing, other than perhaps a simple contrast boost.  When you start with raw images (as do professional photographers) you can really put the pedal to the metal while editing.

[salmobytes 0]

Spent wing Golden Stone

White balance is a bit too yellow on this one.....

[salmobytes 0]

 

[mikemac1 0]

I was lucky to catch a shot of this guy emerging on the Gardner River several years ago.

[salmobytes 0]

that's a cool shot. Morning? Must have been.

[mikemac1 0]

9 hours ago, salmobytes said:

that's a cool shot. Morning? Must have been.

Indeed, before the sun hit the water.  

[tferg 0]

Again, thanks for sharing your awesome work