Rhagonycha fulva

[WearyLandcrab]

217 image stack of a Red soldier beetle Rhagonycha fulva

[FUJI]

Incredible macro photography Weary........keep them coming please....they fascinate me.

FUJI

[Clicker]

Another  tour de force  Andy ...  exhibiting your undoubted skills in processing  macro images . I do like the way you are adding subtle gradients of colour as a backcloth to your exhibits  of late ... It is aesthetically  pleasing  ... and combines  really well  with the  technical detail you acquire  with your specimens... I do like it  also when you add some technical info  also regarding  the number of images  stacked etc ... and time taken in the execution  of the process as some folk may not be aware of  the amount of work  required to  produce an image of this quality ... ... so please could you add that  information when you post these magnificent macros..... 

[WearyLandcrab]

Clicker, Happy to oblige, the lens used for this image was a microtek film scanner lens rated 4000 di attached via helicoid to a Fuji XT2, the camera was mounted on a Wemacro focusing rail. I shot 217 compressed RAW images lit by 3 Godox 350mm flashguns, the subject was set and mounted on my xyzr displacement platform,  the flash difuser I used was dome from a large led bulb. I use Helicon Focus stacking software 217 images at 45 micron steps, about 90 minutes and a futher 45 minutes for Helican focus to crunch them down to a single image, this is transferred to photoshop about another hour cleaning up the image, so around 4/5 hours for this shot, setting the fly can take quite a while to make it look natural  . 

Simple really

[Clicker]

Thanks for relaying that info Andy... I don’t pretend to understand every biit of it  how you get from A to b  especially with the lighting and the displacement platform but I do appreciate that it takes skill and patience .... ... I think how you manage to make the subjects appear in relatively lifelike scenarios contributes immensely to the appreciation of your images ... hats off to you  

[johntwo]

Very nice.  This one looks tame compared to some.

[CMunzel]

The technical information is fascinating to me as are the creatures you photograph. Amazing exacting and time consuming work. Do you share these pictures with scientists like entomologists (if that’s correct spelling)? 

[JHFoto]

Nice shot of this horrible looking creature........