{"id":3413,"date":"2012-12-24T07:34:37","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T12:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/p4td.lightshedder.com\/?p=3413"},"modified":"2012-12-24T08:07:07","modified_gmt":"2012-12-24T13:07:07","slug":"christmas-macro-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=3413","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Macro Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Merry Christmas Eve! <\/p>\n

I went looking for a macro this morning. It is MacroMonday over on Google+, and, as I mentioned yesterday, I need a break from posting images from the Rio Grande trip to Texas and New Mexico. Something new. The living room was dark, with only the little white seed lights of the Christmas tree glowing (along with the screen of my wife\u2019s laptop :). I was attracted to the way the light caught in the hair of this little nutcracker ornament. I was attracted by the way the figure was suspended in the shadows and shapes of the pine needles with only the Christmas Tree lights on.  <\/p>\n

And here is where the magic comes in. This is a handheld, ambient light, macro taken in \u201chandheld night scene mode\u201d at 24mm equivalent field of view with the Canon SX50HS. And the \u201cambient light\u201d came from the few white seed lights that were close enough. The exif data reads f3.2 @ 1\/15th @ ISO 1600 but that is not the whole story. To make this happen, the camera took three shots in rapid sequence and then stacked<\/em> them to produce an exposure with has much of the noise processed out, and which has been stabilized<\/em> by using the position data in the three images to process out motion blur. I did use a monopod under the camera to help steady it a bit, but still, this is nothing short of magical! I have linked the image to the lightbox view at WideEyedInWonder on SmugMug so with a couple of clicks you can view this image as large as you like. (Size controls are at the top of the page.) <\/p>\n

The third of Clarke\u2019s Three Laws (Arthur C. Clarke, the famous SiFi writer) is \u201cAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\u201d It certainly seems as though our cameras today are getting to the point where the technology is that sufficiently advanced. This shot could have been made even in the days of film\u2026but it would have taken a lot of work, and a very skilled artist. Today\u2019s P&S cameras put this kind of shot within the reach of anyone with enough imagination to see it\u2026enough sense to read the manual\u2026and just enough courage to press the shutter button. That is magical!<\/p>\n

Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness using my hyper-real preset. <\/p>\n

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