#MacroMondays
#IMadeThis

I (re)made this crystal bead necklace just the other day, and stupidly broke one of the beads while doing so (I used the wrong pliers, and instead of the wire, the first bead next to the clasp broke). You've seen a small part of this necklace before, for our first theme of 2024, "New" (please see the first comment).

Back in January, I had just newly stringed this lovely necklace, but with a pre-fab jewellery wire that had half of the clasp already mounted so it would be easier to do. It was, but other than I'd thought, the clasp's materials were neither stainless steel nor sterling silver, so the atomically thin silver layer came off quickly. Annoying. But, on the other hand, it allowed me to try again and get the mounting of the clasp properly done with crimp beads (and a proper silver clasp), something I've always struggled with (regarding the finishing part when it comes to mounting the connection ring and Cartier carabiner to the already beaded necklace). And I finally, finally got the knack of doing it the right way. I will remake this necklace again once I've found a bead to replace the broken one. I want to do it in Wabi-sabi style so I hope to find a bead of the correct shape and size but with a different colour. But for now, I'm wearing it as is, one bead shorter, because at the moment, it's my favourite necklace.

For this image, I put the smaller part of the broken bead (I've kept the pieces) on the connection ring of the clasp so the ring and the crimp beads are visible. This time, I thought a black backdrop looked nicer than the apricot-orange background I'd used for my previous photo of this necklace because it added more depth to this quite different presentation. The image is an in-camera focus stacking, and combining the 15 single RAW files in Helicon Focus provided a slightly better result than the automatically in-camera processed Jpg. I removed the inevitable dust but not the signs of usage on the crystal beads.

HMM, Everyone!

Tags:   Macro Mondays HMM I Made This macro close-up necklace beads crystal beads broken clasp connection ring DIY bokeh shallow DOF reflection bling shiny signs of usage jewelry jewellery low-key Halskette Kristallperlen Gebrauchsspuren Schmuck Spiegelung halsketting halskæde naszyjnik colier collier collar colar collana kolye Кольє हार आभूषण ネックレス 项链 Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm 1:2.8 Macro DXO PhotoLab 7 Nik Collection Analog Efex Color Efex ThroughHerLens

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#MacroMondays
#Egg

While in our Solar system, a total eclipse like the Great North American Eclipse of April 8 is an extremely rare sensation, it is a way more frequent (regular, even) occurrence in the Egglar system. There, a total eclipse often can be seen every Sunday morning. Sometimes, these total eclipses even happen twice or more times a week.

Since in Germany, the April eclipse wasn't even visible as a partial eclipse, and the next total eclipse, visible only in Southern Germany, will happen in... 2081 (and Northern Germany? 2135!), I can safely say I won't see either. So I decided to create my very own eclipse for "Egg".

For the sun, I used a whole uncooked egg, backlit by an LED lamp placed right behind it. A smaller, cracked piece of eggshell served as the moon. At first, I had put a smaller egg in front of the "sun", but the round edges were too soft to create this nicely defined shape the moon had in the real eclipse. The cracks in the smaller piece of eggshell also helped in making the "moon's" upper edge better visible in the image because they caught on/let through a little bit of the backlight.

To achieve a good sharpness and definition on both the sun and the moon I had to do focus stacking/bracketing. The in-camera focus stacking didn't work that well with this rather difficult setup, so I did focus bracketing instead. When the camera is set on focus bracketing, one can technically take up to 999 single images. Which I thought was a slight stacking overkill, so I made do with 99 images of which I used about 40 which I combined in Helicon Focus (A, R8, S1).

Size info: The part of the whole egg that is visible in the frame is 4,5 cm/1,77 inches.

HMM, Everyone, and have a nice week ahead!

Tags:   Macro Mondays HMM Egg eggshell macro photography solar eclipse total eclipse eggclipse science fiction sci-fi space fun focus bracketing Ei Eierschale Weltraum Sonnenfinsternis œuf éclipse solaire uovo eclissi solare jajko zaćmienie słońca ou eclipsă de Soare ovo huevo eclipse solar yumurta Güneş tutulması अण्डा सूर्य ग्रहण බිත්තරය සූර්ය ග්‍රහණ OM-D E-M1 Mark III M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm 1:2.8 Macro DXO PhotoLab 7 Helocon Focus Nik Collection Analog Efex Color Efex ThroughHerLens

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#sliderssunday

A sunny slider for Sliders Sunday, photographed two years ago at my favourite Park in Berlin, the Britzer Garten. Unlike the years before, we had managed (by pure chance, of course) to be there when the water lilies were blooming. Britzer Garden is a huge park in Berlin's southwestern district of Neukölln that was opened in 1985 when West Berlin hosted the "BUGA", the Bundesgartenschau (Germany's biennial "Federal Horticulture Show"). The park's wooden "main bridge" with its characteristic triangular pillars is also called "Rhizomatische Brücke" because its design is modelled on the branched root system (rhizome) of the surrounding trees.

Happy Sliders Sunday, everyone, and have a nice week ahead!

Tags:   Berlin Germany Britzer Garten Britz Neukölln Rhizomatische Brücke Hauptsee Seerosen bridge wooden bridge triangular rhizomatic lake water lilies ripples waves reflections trees sunshine green blue yellow lush beautiful scenery landscape Olympus E-M1 Mark III OM System 20mm F1.4 DXO PhotoLab 7 Nik Collection Color Efex ThroughHerLens

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#Mittwochsmakro

A slightly battered but still beautiful tulip I found in a front garden around the corner just the other day. When I took the photo, perched rather uncomfortably (and therefore quite wobbly) halfway under a shrub, I didn't even notice the tiny visitor on one of the petals because I was all concentrated on keeping the camera as still as possible. I slightly blew the photo up in Gigapixel AI so the visitor is better visible when you zoom in.

Taken on a first short photo stroll with my "new old" Lumix LX100 Mark II which I just bought used in very good condition (apparently no dust spots on the sensor, only minor signs of usage, but I haven't checked the shutter count, yet, because it's a little complicated) because the zoom motor on my old, beloved LX100 is getting quirky. The slightly better resolution of the Mark II's 21 MP sensor (of which the camera only uses 17 MP due to Panasonic's so-called "multi-aspect sensor" – why, Panasonic, why????) yields beautiful details and a sharp, crisp rendering even nicer than that of the predecessor. So far, I'm very happy with my first used camera purchase :)

Happy Wednesday Macro/Mittwochsmakro, everyone!

Tags:   Berlin Germany Mittwochsmakro tulip aphid tulipa tiny visitor yellow green red spring flower macro close-up bokeh Tulpe Blattlaus gelb rot grün Frühling Blümchenmakro tulp tulipan lalea lale チューリップ 郁金香属 aphidoidea mszyce afidă yaprak biti アブラムシ 蚜虫 Panasonic Lumix LX100 Mark II compact camera LEICA DC-Vario SUMMILUX Panaleica Leica DXO PhotoLab 7 Nik Collection Color Efex Analog Efex ThroughHerLens Wednesday Macro

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#MacroMondays
#AprilFools

Some 1st of April fun with a red hot (well, not that hot) chili pepper and a so-called Lady finger banana. These smallest "dessert" bananas are also known as fig bananas, sugar bananas, or date bananas due to their sweet, complex, and delicious taste. To complete the confusion, in German, these finger-long, thin-skinned fruits are also known as "apple bananas" or "baby bananas". And it gets particularly interesting when taking into account that, in German, bananas once were referred to as "Paradiesfeigen" ("paradise figs") which brings us back to the "fig-" or, even more fitting, "apple" bananas. Speaking of going bananas while doing the banana research for this theme...

The chili pepper is one of the easily accessible, run-of-the-mill, long red peppers of medium heat that are sometimes referred to as Jalapeños but technically aren't. After peeling (and eating) the banana, I cut off a bit of the banana's stem and carefully placed the chili pepper inside of the skin so that what you see of the "forbidden fruit" inside the frame wasn't any longer than 6,5 cm/2,55 inches.

The image is a focus stack made of 15 images. The in-camera stacked JPG looked good already but combining the Raw files in Helicon Focus yielded an even better result with method B, radius 8, smoothing 1.

P.S. In German, we say "April, April" after having fooled someone on the 1st of April ;)

HMM, Everyone, and don't let yourself get fooled ;)

Tags:   Macro Mondays HMM April Fools macro close-up banana Musa Musa acuminata Lady finger banana fig banana hot pepper red pepper chili Capsicum annuum Some Like it Hot Red Hot Chili Peppers Won't Get Fooled Again The Who fun red yellow hot sweet Apfelbanane Baby-Banane Paradiesfeigen Chilischote scharf süß Aprilscherz April, April focus stacking Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm 1:2.8 Macro Helicon Focus DXO PhotoLab 7 Nik Collection Color Efex ThroughHerLens

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