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Buffalo Bur and Spider

I spotted a budding Buffalo Bur (Solanum rostrum) plant growing while mowing the yard last week. I went out earlier this week and photographed the plant outdoors and I was not happy with the results. I then clipped one of the flowers and took it into my studio where it wilted in less than five minutes so I gave up on photographing it, mostly due to the intense heat. Then, I went out this morning one last time and spotted this little spider who gave me renewed inspiration.

This 1x magnification image was made using the focus stacking technique. I normally use this technique in the studio but there are times when it’s necessary to use it in the field. I’ve mentioned before that macro photography has a very narrow depth of field. The Depth of Field (DoF) for this lens/aperture/focus distance combination is 0.06 inches. In addition to DoF, other challenges for using this technique outdoors are wind and changing light. There was a breeze which moved the flower so I had to wait for a calm period before I could capture enough images to put together the stack.

Buffalo Bur Spider
Buffalo Bur Spider

This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5DS using my Canon EF 180mm f/3.5 Macro Lens. The camera was set on Aperture Priority mode with the aperture set at f/5, shutter speed at 1/250th of a second and the ISO set at 400. I did not use a flash to light the subject. I captured eight images using manual focus stacking (manually adjusting the focus). I brought the images into a single image using Photoshop. I then used Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro to finalize the image.

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T. Kahler Photography
© 2016 T. Kahler Photography

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4 thoughts on “Buffalo Bur and Spider”

    1. Thanks Lucas. No masking on this one. I just used the Photoshop blending feature. It worked well on the fist pass. I did some cleanup before going back to Lr.

  1. Very nice when the tool saves you some work. Great result. Cleanup is where you lose track of time.

    Sorry for the typos… Multiple screens are sometimes not a great thing for clean typing. :) You get crossed thought processes. (in your = or use). Glad you parsed out the meaning.

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