Nikon D8109, 1/160 sec, f2.8, 195mm, ISO 200
One day out shoveling the driveway, I noticed snow stacked on top of the dozen or so glass balls we have hanging in one of our trees. I whipped out my camera, set the aperture for a shallow depth of field, and here you have it.
Garage Photography
Nikon D810, 5.0 sec, f/20, 90m, ISO 200
One day I read an article about photographing flower blossoms in ice. Later that day I walked outside and plucked some blossoms off the azalea in my yard. After several days in the freezer, it was ready for my garage studio.
I especially like the ice crystals along the top back edge of the ice. The cracks and bubbles in the ice add visual interest. I placed the ice block on top of an upturned glass. In the final image this almost looks like a reflection of the ice block.
One word of caution: work fast! Those nice ice crystals start melting after a few minutes. The bloom sticking out of the top starts wilting after 15 minutes or so. Other than that, this is a nice project to save for a rainy day.
Garage Photography
Nikon D810, 15.0 sec, f/20, 90mm, ISO 200
My wife picked up this sea grass bouquet during a trip to Charleston, SC. One rainy day I took this into my garage studio and broke out my 90mm macro lens. Because of the shallow depth of field associated with macro lenses, and the depth from front to back of the bouquet, I had to take multiple images focused on different parts of the bouquet. To control the focus points, I used my Really Right Stuff macro rail (yikes! I bought mine years ago and did not spend this much!)
During post processing I focus stacked the dozens of images into a single image. Actually, there were so many images I had to stack them into four different images, and then focus stack those four images. After focus stacking, the entire image is in sharp focus forth very back to the strands sticking out the front.
Garage Photography
