Columbus October 31

I visited the Columbus Zoo October 31 and stayed inside.

eastern box turtle

Mertens' water monitor

Buddy, a hawksbill sea turtle. She lives with manatees.

Buddy (Facebook)

A pelican, also with the manatees. I didn't note the species.

Red Sea sailfin tang

Razorfish. Lousy picture but interesting fish. They hang out nose-down.

Focus Stacking - Mushroom

I've been using PaintShop Pro 2019 and have been mostly happy with it. I use it mainly to crop pictures and add a watermark to the pictures I post on Instagram. It often puts up a nag screen that says I should upgrade but I haven't had a reason to. I did check out what's new in 2023, though, and found that it supports focus stacking.

In effect, focus stacking software provides a greater depth of field than a camera can provide. It takes two or more images of the same subject, each of which is focused at a different point, and merges them. This is especially useful in macro photography where the depth of field might be a few millimeters. I tried it on a mushroom, and it turned out pretty well.

The stacked image

I fed two pictures into the software.

f/4.8  1/320s  ISO 400  100mm macro lens

Underexposure Can Be Good

Purposeful underexposure can yield interesting pictures, but I'm not sophisticated enough to remember the technique is available, much less recognize appropriate situations. So I'm left with mistakes.

I shot a snakeskin at the Columbus Zoo. It was severely underexposed, and I don't know why. I typically use full automatic mode when shooting handheld in the Reptile Building, so the exposure should have been fine. I don't need a fast shutter because the animals rarely move. If I want more depth of field (smaller aperture), I use a tripod because a longish exposure is required.

Anyway, the shot came out 2 or 3 stops too dark but I like it a lot. I used software to add 1 to 3 stops of light to see what it would look light at the correct exposure.

original

+1 stop

+2 stops

+3 stops

I make this kind of correction using software from Nikon and the RAW image from the camera, instead of the JPEG image. RAW is what comes off the sensor and contains more information than the corresponding JPEG image. I use Nikon's software because I figure Nikon knows its RAW format best. I'm amazed that there are colors hidden in the darkness. There is a lot of noise in the third and fourth versions that shows up as pixels of the wrong color in areas that that are mostly one color.