This is a bloom from a chive plant, as seen through a stereo microscope. I had to light this puppy up with 2 banks of LEDs and a desk lamp to get a sufficient exposure. No vignetting was added, this is straight from the camera. Haven't figured out a way to get a capture yet that includes the full "circle" - I don't like that the top and bottom part of the circle is cut off, but that's what I get right now with the current setup - I didn't crop anything from top/bottom, only the sides.
Converted from RAW, cropped slightly to take off some of the vignette on either side of the image, adjustment layers for Levels, Selective Color, and Brightness/Contrast, a bit of healing for dust spots, USM and resize/save for web.
The shot that got away - so I was peering at this bloom at high mag, shifting it around, trying to find a pleasing arrangement, when all of a sudden a chigger hove into view - I swear he looked as big as my eyeball, a big, red, nasty, uuuggghh! I jumped straight in the air, it gave me a fright. Unfortunately what with the fright and the fact that it was moving very fast (and that I couldn't take a quick exposure, to stop motion), I wasn't able to catch a shot of him. What a money shot that would be, though! All these delicate looking stems, and suddenly a big red beast looms! Chiggers appear as miniscule little red dots to our eyes, but under a microscope look something like this:
Statistics
Place: 86 out of 222 Avg (all users): 5.6761 Avg (commenters): 6.7143 Avg (participants): 5.7576 Avg (non-participants): 5.6395 Views since voting: 1355 Views during voting: 305 Votes: 213 Comments: 14 Favorites: 0
This is really lovely. I have an old microscope that my kids used to use and I've been trying to figure out how I could use it. You have done a great job.
I like this one a lot, it's something I've always wanted to try. The clarity is exceptional. The only thing I'd do is crop out the black circle and leave just the bloom visible.
Positives: Stunning clarity, good color and a nice macro. Good concept.
Technicals: You didn't say in the notes, but imply that this was captured through a microscope. You probably need a lensed adapter to prevent REAL vignetting. LOL!!! You can always deal with that problem through cropping, though.
Lighting(away from the vignette), sharpness are exceptional.
The image lacks a central focal object for the human eye to latch onto. It is like a really nice background without a main subject.
The Challenge: Yup... science all right. :) It placed well and scored above average. This undoutably is because of it's superb technical quality. But the composition itself lacked thematic content or eye attractive viewpoints and that held the score down.
Suggestions: The image, as it is is fine, but it needs more sharply focused chives positioned in more interesting ways... whatever THAT means. ;) How to do it is another story all together. I doubt you have any control over DOF so that makes that a very difficult job. Just keep moving things around until to get a lot of chive in focus in an interesting arrangement. :)
For less vignette simply crop the image closer. Detail will be larger in the frame and your camera provides plenty of data for you to work with.
LOL! Got a kick out of your comments. Congrats on the new top 5 - an excellent shot this be! And I'm impressed with the whole microscope setup deal, too.
I confess that I cherrypicked this shot and gave it a nice fat score, but neglected to vote on the rest of the challenge. Sorry! This is terrific. Love the colors. Plus I'm a fan of chive flowers (471764). Definitely worth the effort. Glad you escaped the chigger!
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