Fascinated by Soap Bubbles

End of January in the North Country... and you know what that means: frigid cold temperatures! 

And 2021 did not disappoint in that regard. We had a multi-day cold spell with subzero temperatures outside, so even the inside of our (wind-protected) porch was cold enough for the "frozen soap bubbles experiment" that I wanted to try since I read about it. There are plenty of instructions out there how to make abstract/macro shots with soap bubbles while they are slowly freezing over with interesting ice crystal structures. But I wanted to use a different lighting idea with my color LED tubes below a translucent bowl filled with snow. After some optimizing over the course of three nights I found my style. And very cold fingers in the process as this can take a while.... You see, not every attempt is successful: bubbles don't form, bubbles burst on contact with the snow, bubbles don't form crystals in the right place etc, etc.... And then it's about 30 seconds or until they freeze over. But it was worth all the pain and I am finding more and more gems while processing the results. 

For my photos, I used this exposure starting point: Manual mode, Tripod-mounted using cable release, Aperture = f/9 (best compromise for globe sharpness and background blur), Exposure < 1/2 sec (depending on light intensity), ISO = 800 (above that noise becomes noticeable).

Here are some examples from the three nights. The second one has some photoshop snow globe effect added (I could not resist to try this at least once).

There are many more images here: https://www.magiclens.net/Collections/Special-Topics/Macro-Topics/  Enjoy!

4x4 Still Life

I picked up the idea for these still life arrangements in a presentation recently and thought it would be a nice exercise to find some props in my stash and compose a few myself. The technical side is not too complicated (but I still have to improve on the lighting) aside from the fact that you have to shoot straight downward (tripods with the option of a vertical arm are very helpful). 

Here are a few examples:

Having Fun with Leave Abstracts

OK. Leaves are falling. Sad, but that's just the nature of things. And instead of complaining about the cold and dreary season that's about to come upon us, we can still have fun! Just take a macro lens and get close to the ground. And do not focus on the "nice" leaves only. I found the half broken down ones even more interesting. See this example below.

The trick is to find a flat one. Once they lay around for a while, they get dry and wrinkle up. And wrinkles require too much depth of field that a macro lens at that magnification usually does not offer that easily. Sure, bringing leaves into your studio and putting them under a glas to flatten them might work as well... but I prefer to take photos of objects in their natural environments.

And then just try different angles and compositions. Find out what works best only on a bigger screen once the image have been downloaded. You can still rotate and crop, but you loose resolution and quality in the process. So try to get as close to a good composition already while shooting.

In post processing you can then add more contrast or clarity, sharpen the image and optimize the colors. Those subjects without a background reference are quite forgiving.


Maple Leaf Abstract

Shortlived Foliage Season 2017

A very dry second half of Summer 2017, together with windy and rainy conditions on the Columbus Day weekend will probably shorten the Vermont Foliage Season this year. After our photo tour on Saturday under overcast skies, Sunday was partly sunny again. We decided to explore the local Preston Pond area in Bolton. It features a few beaver ponds and a beautiful outlook, called Libby's Look. Thanks to the high dynamic range sensor of my SLR and the editing capabilities of Lightroom, even the backlighting conditions in late afternoon resulted in good photos from the top. Instead of the all too common broad view of colorful trees, I played with reflections, abstracts, camera movement and sunstars. Oh what glorious colors and photographic opportunities nature provides!


Preston Pond Loop Abstract


Sunstar


Libby's Look

Preston Pond Reflections (I)


Preston Pond Reflections (II)