Roses: Technical Post

Gallery: FloraPosted April 24, 201652 views3 comments

Hi, this post is a little different ;-) ... I use Sigma cameras for all of my serious photographic work, which are built around a sensor which is very different from the 'normal' Bayer type sensor. The Rose Still Life is a focus stack made by the 50mm Sigma DP3 Merrill (probably for me the best incarnation of the APS-C Foveon Merrill sensor). I have always been interested in Roses, but not actually the young, pristine, smooth classic 'beauty', but rather more, how the structures begin to develop as the rose ages into, for me, a more refined beauty, with perhaps, a memory of youth, as it were. With such a rose, capturing detail, every wrinkle and nuance of the signs of age (very different of course to current trends in the fashion world ;-)) is paramount, and this, the Foveon sensor does very well. I thus thought this post might be of interest to one or the other here, and as such, i have posted the full size original HERE for viewing. (The stack btw. is 12 images via Zerene Stacker). Detail is not everything of course, and the cameras have their 'foibles' to say the least - but i have reproduced, and regularly do reproduce, such images from a single shot at 100cm x 150cm. Anyway as I say, perhaps of interest ...

Cheers, Mark

The Foveon Sigma Sensor.

Sigma DP3 Merrill, ISO 100, F5.6, 1/3 sec.

Comments

3 comments

Comment posted by Bill Fach on April 24, 2016 at 3:50 PM

Mark: Technical perhaps but perfection nonetheless. Beautiful bouquet superbly rendered. >=))>

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1805 Posts, 26981 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on April 26, 2016 at 5:18 PM

Mark, I appreciate the technical aspect of this, and I also appreciate that equally good detail can be had from a single shot. However, stacking is about more than building a detailed image in depth from a number of thin DOF images. It is also about achieving a blurred background at the same time. Stacking has numerous other flaws, especially in flowers, of halos, crossing lines, mottling, etc., from which a single image is free. Editing can be a huge headache, even when experience tells you where errors will occur.

The image here is very tasteful and impeccably done. cool

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Mark James Ford on April 26, 2016 at 5:40 PM

Hi Phil, thanks and definitely! Actually the point of the post wasn't about the stacking per say - though the total DOF here wouldn't have been possible without it, and yes you are right in terms of all the issues that need to be mastered to come up with the a decently processed image - sometimes I feel that one spends so much time 'repairing' the image afterwards that it barely seems worth it enlightened

. Much more was my intention to show the fundamental detail capture (hence the full scale link) from the sensor. I rarely if ever do such shots now as the one posted ...

And Bill thanks as well ...

Cheers, Mark

Registered on January 16, 2015, 60 Posts, 430 Comments