Focus Stacking

It is a digital processing technique where several photos where focus has been taken in several points or focus distances from the subject. This is done in order to deepen the DOF of the subject. You may read it more in detail here.

Below is the image above where it highlights the areas or focus points. Therefore the image is made up of three separate images and later combined during post-processing.

Here are more related articles on Focus Stacking.

Something Is Brewing

Last night on my way home, I passed by a convenience store looking for something to drink with my expected dinner. While looking around the beverage area, I saw this bottle of beer I don't recall ever seeing before. It had an interesting label and I thought it would be a good opportunity to photograph it and make something nice. As I continued on my way, my mind was thinking of how to make this more interesting then an "Aha!" moment occurred.

When I got home, I did some research on how to do what I wanted to do while I ate dinner. Didn't exactly found what I was looking for but there were some very helpful stuff in the Internet. After filling up my tummy with food and my mind with ideas, I started to set up and as usual, I do a test shot which I posted last night which is also shown below.

Something's Brewing...

Water Drops And Splashes

Recently, I followed Alex Koloskov at G+ and their site MasteringSplash. They've got truly inspiring photos on water splashes and I thought I should give it  a try. Before I went on splashes, I revisited some water drops and see what I can come up this time -- a 'Growling Bear'?

Growling Bear

Stuck At Home

Having on-call duty work gets me stuck at home apparently just to avoid connection issues. Wife and kids are out and I'm really stuck at home. It's both a bad thing since I'll be stuck at home and a good thing as I got a chance to practice on my product photography without staying up until the wee hours of the night.

Here's a preview on my practice.

On this practice session I came to realize that my watch have a lot of scratches on the bands. I actually get to see the gritty dirt too. The glass part though doesn't have much scratch that are visible and that's a good thing.

Photographing shiny things like this by the way is very challenging as it is important to take note of the reflections that can be seen like your face, your background, your camera lens, and many more things.

Talking about lens being reflected on the watch face especially the camera lens, a telephoto lens will help in this case, but since I only have the kit lens I have to position the camera where the reflection won't be seen.

I quite miss shooting these things.

Flutter flutter

Flutter flutter.. flutter flutter..

I have seen for the past few days several butterflies flying around the garden.. I really want to get some decent shots of them but every time I sneak on them they fly away and flutter about. I guess it's really time to get some telephoto/macro lens for the job (sadly can't yet, but soon!).

Anyway, I have to do with what I have. With my beloved kit lens I was able to snap a photo of this butterfly.

It was perching on a high leaf and thus the angle of view. No time to get a stool or anything to prop myself higher as this will surely fly away again.

The following day, I tried camping on the grounds and wait some butterflies to perch somewhere near me but to no success, I wasn't able to get any photos that day. Then the next day, I went out again this time I was able to take photos something different though not totally different as this was on it's second stage of it's growth cycle. Do you have any guess? This was easier to take photos as it would stop on the sense of motion.

It's a caterpillar!

I was able to snap more than enough of this crawler but only a couple passed my taste for technical aspects of photography -- exposure, image quality, and composition. Here's another view of it:

Now, I am on the hunt on what kind of specie of butterfly this is. And yesterday morning, I was able to collect three of them and placed them in a glass enclosure with twigs and leaves. I am hoping to rear it into a full blown butterfly. When I got home, only one was left. I guess the other two was able to crawl out.


I'll try to search the grounds again for others and I think I'll be able to find some. It's butterfly time!