I've been amazed and thrilled with the response to my snowflake from this morning's post in my main album. I realized that I underestimated how it turned out because I was so disappointed in 240 of the 250 shots! Even the other 9 that worked had problems. Given some of the questions, I'll lay out the steps I took. This shot had a good snowflake, but the background was filled with fabric texture and strings etc. which the macro picked up so I ETSOOI to focus on the snowflake. Here's how it worked:
1. snowflakes need to be fairly light and fluffy and not coming down really hard and fast, so that you can get some single ones
2. DoF needs to be fairly deep or you'll get just part of the flake in focus (these were around f9)
3. Shutter speed needs to be fairly fast but it works at 40-60 if that's all the lighting allowed (I used natural light as I thought a bright light might melt the flakes too fast)
4. Need a dark background for them to land on, but I couldn't find anything that the macro didn't pick up too much texture. Maybe black plastic or something instead of fabric? I tried leather and nylon as well as suede and cloth.
5. Set camera shutter on burst so I could get up to 3 or 4 shots at a time so that hopefully one would be in focus
6. Took pictures for several minutes, went inside to warm up, repeated.
I've tried in the past to use a tripod but didn't find I did any better than with handheld.
It was fun but frustrating. Now I'm happy to have two flakes to post!
Main album snowflake 1: http://365project.org/taffy/365/2014-02-08
Snowflake 3: http://365project.org/taffy/special-photos/2014-02-23
This would well for next weeks book club theme which is concentrating on shape. Thanks so much for telling us what you did. Well done for getting the shotTaffy it really doesn't matter how many you took as long as you got one you were happy with.
Absolutely beautiful .... the editing has given this one the edge for me - A really creative image ! Great patience and dedication obviously needed --and you have shown to have plenty -- but all worth while -- Super Taffy --A fav
Thanks so much for explaining how you've done this!!! You are clearly to hard on yourself. You are so talented! I really like this shot as well, you've got amazing detail in both snowflakes.
Although we often view winter as cold and bleak your photograph shows the jewel like splendour of Mother Nature.
Impressive technical feat! It's a fav!!
As much as I am impressed with your incredibly detailed shot in you main album. I'm more partial to this amazing shot and processing. Its less "clean" and imperfect looking. Which, to me, makes it seem more real.
Impressive technical feat! It's a fav!!