A Valentine’s bouquet

going small to see BIG? Or is it BIG to see small? I’m so confused…

a series about going macro to see micro

Text and photos by LensAfield

The banner image was of a bouquet containing lilies, carnations, gladiolas, anemones, and some strange accent acoutrements. In this installment I will look into that strange pinkish-reddish globular thingy. There were few scattered about the bouquet.

Despite their appearance as being some fake thingamabobs (I like to be scientifically precise whenever possible) used for visual texture, once pulled from the arrangement I could see the long stem was not completely covered in whatever they were dipped in. Could they actually be some sort of cut flower?

After a little research, I learned that this was a Craspedia, otherwise known as Billy Button. I’m guessing they were dipped in this reddish goop, likely latex, to mask their natural yellow-orangish hues which didn’t mesh well with the bouquet’s general color paradigm.

I decided to visit the florist that produced the bouquet. After showing them some of my photography stored on my phone as my calling card, they allowed me to peruse their cold room.

Once there, I showed them the banner image above and asked if they had any Billy Buttons in their natural state. They did. I bought one (and some other flowers for later study) and headed back the manor to set up for some tabletop studio-style shooting where I transform from being LensAfield (mask and cape set sold separately) to mild-mannered, strangely reclusive any-man, aka, LensAhome.

Some reference shots. Upper right: An iPhone photo to show the subject in natural light with the unaided eye. Its actual diameter is 20mm, a touch over 3/4". The bottom right shows a dime for absolute size reference. The left shows the two subjects for detail.

A starting point image, approximately thrice normal size.

Now that we have a size reference, it’s time to go macro to see micro (technically, capturing 1:1 or better). In the image above we can see that there is tremendous tiny detail in this little globe. Let’s get closer and explore more deeply.

As close as my 105mm macro lens will let me get.

A different side. Notice there are a few open flowers.

And a visual reminder of just how close we are getting. I am holding the Billy Button in front of my monitor which shows an image in my photo editing app on a 21" screen.

Now let’s get really close!

Through some rather orthodox techniques, we are now extremely close and can see the detail on these tiny buds! Unfortunately, I can‘t show this image or the one to follow (or any for that matter) at full resolution on this platform. The detail on my screen at over 5800 px wide at 300ppi is mind-blowing! Having to resize and resample to the preferred size for this platform and at 72dpi causes some loss of fine detail I worked so hard to capture.

These two images as cropped are probably a tad less than 3mm across. The previous image is the final focus stack produced from 8 image slices, each 1/2mm deep at f/4 and a working focus distance of about 2 inches. This image was created from a 14 shot stack, each cutting about 1/4mm deep at f/1.8 with a working distance of 4.3mm—yes, you read that right—achieved with additional unorthodox techniques. We see there is an unopened bud, a flower beginning to open, and an opened flower. Lighting becomes the biggest obstacle with so little distance between lens and subject, thus the need to get as wide an aperture as possible. In doing so the depth of field becomes minute, less than 1/2mm, thus the need to stack image slices of less than 1/2mm to get enough overlap so that the stack produces a smooth, complete image showing full subject depth.

Notice how at a close working distance that the portion in focus in a single shot is very thin, even here at f/11.

This final image is used to show the coated and uncoated Billy Buttons. We can now see that the coated one was in full bloom at the time it was dipped. Perhaps I shall pick up another and see if I can nurture it to get to the same state. That would make for some incredible shots!

The next post will examine another component of the bouquet. E.B., try not to get too excited!