Camera Labs

Hi all,

Shot at f#32 this was diffraction blurred and sharpened up by Noel Carboni using fractal sharpening:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2064/252 ... 293b_b.jpg

Greg

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Nexstar 11 GPS, 2 x Sky 90, M25C, MaximDL, Photshop CS3, Noel Carboni's Photoshop actions, 7 foot Pulsar fibreglass dome, Canon 40D, 100mm macro lens, 28-200mm zoom lens, 17-55mm f#2.8 zoom lens, 100-400mm zoom lens, 1.4x converter, 2x converter.
http://www.newforestobservatory.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12801949@N02/

Hi Greg,

Lovely shot, but you knew I was going to say that, didn't you?

My ears pricked up (or should that be eyes?) when I saw the phrase "fractal sharpening". I always thought it a shame that we didn't go the fractal route when compression standards were up for grabs a a decade or so ago but memory tells me that lack of CPU power for end user compression was an issue at the time. Having followed the link to Noel's dSLR Fractal Sharpen Actions, priced at a very reasonable $15, I was about to stump up the cash but then realised that I would also need a copy of Genuine Fractals 5 priced at a slightly less reasonable $159.95.

Might still be worth it, and I see there is a demo, but I'd be interested to know your own views. Was there a significant advantage to using fractal sharpening in your image? Would one gain similarly if this was used to sharpen landscapes where high f-numbers have to be used to get the required depth of field?

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
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Hi Bob,

In my opinion fractal sharpening produces superior results to the usual "packaged" sharpening routines. I have not seen it applied to high f# landscapes so I cannot comment from experience, but Noel has experimented on a couple of deep-sky images and obtained very good results (I don't think he was expecting the improvement that he actually got).

Greg

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Nexstar 11 GPS, 2 x Sky 90, M25C, MaximDL, Photshop CS3, Noel Carboni's Photoshop actions, 7 foot Pulsar fibreglass dome, Canon 40D, 100mm macro lens, 28-200mm zoom lens, 17-55mm f#2.8 zoom lens, 100-400mm zoom lens, 1.4x converter, 2x converter.
http://www.newforestobservatory.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12801949@N02/

Thats a very crisp shot

Now i got very interested in this sharpening conversation, i checked the link to that plugin for the 15 dollars and thats seems like quite the great action to have on your PC. But i dont understand why you would need the other software? Could you clarify?

Thanks for sharing that great image, your are quite the macro guy arn't ya!

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Nice image! Looks like an eye staring at me. Which is what the butterfly wants isn't it?

Isn't Genuine Fractals an interpolation tool?

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Graham
Flickr

You need Genuine Fractals as that is the base software that Noel's plug in uses to work, rather like his Astro Tools need Photoshop as the base software to work on (I hope this makes sense).

As for the macro work (and photography in general) I am on a very steep learning curve. I only took my first RAW image today (a foal that can be seen on my Flickr site). This has got to be one of the most fascinating hobbies available - the parameter space is so huge I don't think you can ever "know it all"

Greg

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Nexstar 11 GPS, 2 x Sky 90, M25C, MaximDL, Photshop CS3, Noel Carboni's Photoshop actions, 7 foot Pulsar fibreglass dome, Canon 40D, 100mm macro lens, 28-200mm zoom lens, 17-55mm f#2.8 zoom lens, 100-400mm zoom lens, 1.4x converter, 2x converter.
http://www.newforestobservatory.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12801949@N02/

Ohhh ok! Thanks Greg!

I remembered reading that about it when I was experimenting with interpolation.

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Graham
Flickr

That is amazing!!! What wonderful detail. I would have never even thought that this was a butterfly wing had you not mentioned it.

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Wildlife/Bird Photographer
Canon 5D & Digital Rebel T1i
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My Photography: mydigitalmind : flickr

Beautiful shot!

This may come off as sounding like a stupid question but... why did you shoot it at f/32? It seems like the subject matter has a flat depth of field from what I can see. Was it an experiment to play with the fractal sharpening using a complex background that would highlight diffraction? Or at that magnification level with macro photography, is that kind of aperture needed just to manage the razor sharp DoF?

Also, is this 1:1 magnification and cropped to zoom in, or is it higher than 1:1, because it sure looks very close!

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Hardware: Nikon D80, Sigma 10-20mm, Nikon 18-55 mm VR, 55-200 mm VR, 105mm f/2.8D Micro, 35mm f/1.8G, SB-600, Manfrotto/Bogen 190CXPRO3 + 468MGRC2
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