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As with Alder trees, you can find these at waterside and other places with somewhat boggy soil in late spring and early summer. They were abundant in late May in England.
They tend to be fairly inactive on low vegetation. Thus, they make a good subject for novices. However, being rather three-dimensional, DOF is an issue.
I used my Kiron 105mm macro, at f11, to shoot this one, 1/100 sec ISO 400, sunlight, hand-held.
The first image is as I would normally post. For the second one I saved four further versions of the same image, with brightness at -15, -30, +15 and +30 in PhotoShop Image Adjustments. I then loaded them into some HDR freeware I have just downloaded. I chose some average-looking settings (“average” may not apply) at asked it to make an HDR. I must emphasise that this was my first go with HDR. I don’t know what I am doing to any extent and was “winging it”.
The process had made the image almost monochrome so I tried to restore some colour in PS but it was, on this occasion best to not be too ambitious. I did not adjust sharpness or contrast.
Anyway, it seems to me that the process brings out some detail and is another tool with some potential for macro images.
Yes, I know that HDR really requires a series of identically-framed images at different exposures. However, this looks like a worthwhile exercise and may be the only option for HDR when subjects are not co-operative enough for a series of shots.
Harold
© Harold Gough 2013
Normal image
Same image via HDR with some colour adjustment
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