Hacked Off

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As someone who meddles with cables from less than a millimetre across up to big beasties thicker than your wrist, I quite like the lack of scale here.
Niche interest though...
(About 8mm total diameter for any fellow weirdos in the audience)

Life, Lemons, Lights, and Lenses

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I was scratting round for a subject this evening, and eventually landed on this lemon.
Being edible, I suppose it's at least loosely in my snackro category.
This one's a stack of 33 frames.

Still Kaputt, But Closer

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I smell of spray paint. My house smells of spray paint. My entire neighbourhood probably smells of spray paint.
But progress has been made, and I took a photo.
What an unusually productive evening.

This one's a focus stack at 4.5x magnification

Beauty In Decay

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I gave this leaf skeleton a bit of macro treatment.
I think it's fascinating to see how it's decayed but left the veins behind.
3x magnification stacked shot made from 10 frames shot with my WeMacro focus rail, stacked with Helicon Focus.

Success!

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We finally got through the EMC tests we have been working on at work today, with the addition of a little widget we designed.
That's another bit of the project in the bag.
This one's a focus stack of 68 images.

Unrelated, but this is my 1250th post here.

A Moment For Reconditioning

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I bought myself another 2nd-hand lens yesterday, the EF8-15mm f/4 L fisheye. I've been considering one for a long time, but they don't come up locally all that often.
While it works well, it is not in perfect condition; it looks like the protruding front element has made contact with one or two things over the years, as it has a few very fine scratches, and the weather seal was pretty well mangled, as is relatively common with used L series lenses.
The seals aren't protected when the lens is capped and stuffed in your bag, and they're made of a fairly soft silicone, so they're easily snagged and torn if you aren't careful.
The new RF series caps are a bit bigger and protect the seal, so I have contemplated either getting a few of those, although they're a rather tight fit on the EF lenses, or perhaps 3D printing an extra ring to attach to the EF caps to cover up the seal.
Fortunately, the weather seal is a fairly straightforward repair now I've found a ready source of affordable replacement seals. I've made this repair on several of my lenses now with good results.

Hopefully I'll have some wacky fisheye photos from this lens to share soon.

Examine The Fracture Surface

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I spent a bit of time today looking at the surfaces of a metal component that had fatigue fractured, and ended up taking some photos for the report. If I'd remembered to take the correct lens with me, I might even have posted one here, but alas I did not.
Therefore, you'll have to make do with this snackro of the fracture surface of a Matchmaker chocolate instead.

It's much tastier, and a lot less chewy than a lump of steel, I'll give it that much.

This one's a 3x magnification photo (plus a minor crop), and is a stack made up of 37 frames.

Gingernut

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First working day of the year, and I ended up doing about an hour and a half over. Silly boy.
Despite that, I actually managed to make real food with actual vegetables tonight. Astonishing.

This pair of photos are 3x macro shots, stacks of 62 and 77 frames respectively.

One more after the jump.

Hope Springs Eternal

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This is a tiny bit of new growth that has appeared in the last few days on a small rose plant that I thought was completely dead.
It very nearly got binned last week, but I thought I'd give it a couple more weeks on the off chance. That appears to have paid off.
This one's a stack of 17 shots at 1.5x magnification.

Whirring Miniature

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A macro shot of a little gearbox that (along with a bag of other bits) has been consuming rather a lot of my time this week.
We managed to reduce one of them to a small pile of dust on an endurance test last night, so I spent several hours this afternoon working on some improvements - Let's hope we can treat this one better!

The Correct Ratio

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(Of chocolate to biscuit, in case you were wondering)
Another snackro. The delight of doing these is that you get a tasty treat when you're done.
I find it interesting that you can see a bit of machining chatter, or perhaps more likely CNC stepover marks from the mould on the internal cone shape. I suppose they don't worry about achieving a nice finish in the chocolate mould machining world. How dissipated. Perhaps they are too busy "quality controlling" the final merchandise...
This one's a stack of 41 frames.

Peppercorns

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The week has gone to pot by Tuesday afternoon...
Not the best shot, but I'm knackered, and the other one I did was worse. I think I've got some minor vibration issues coming from the focus rail with the setup in this orientation.

Pop!

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Continuing my occasional theme of macro photos of snacks with this 1x macro of a piece of popcorn (or my brain, I can't be completely sure these days 🤯)
Snackro photography, you might say.
This one's a focus stack of 39 shots.

Take A Bite

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I actually set up a shot this evening.
I used actual effort, and everything!

My parents brought me this apple back from a trip to Barnsdale Gardens, where I got married. It's a nice apple, and it's a nice reminder of the best day of my life.

Texture In Smooth Stuff

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Another possible option for 52Frames texture.
It's interesting to find texture like boulders even on a smooth surface, when you get close enough.
I gelled the flashes in suitably garish colours to bring the texture out more.
This is a 3.5x macro, and is a stack of 22 shots.
The rest of the stone is after the break.

Sticky Business

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A 2x macro shot of a roll of gaffer tape.
Now I have a pile of equipment to put away again 🙃

Elderberries

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This one's my submission for this week's 52Fframes "Macro" challenge.
It's a 2x macro shot, and is a focus stack of 60 frames.

Expand

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Take A Long Hard Look At Yourself

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[Rant Redacted]

I crashed out hard after work today and fell asleep on the sofa, so I never got round to going out for a walk (or doing anything else).
I was reaching for the backup bucket, but I finally managed to haul my vast bulk off my lazy backside and took this flower off my Fuchsia for a bit of macro treatment.
The Fuchsia has just burst into flower in the last couple of days, and is looking lovely. Granny Pat would have been most pleased with it, and I'm reminded of her every time I see it.

This one's made up of 62 shots stacked in Helicon Focus.
Judging by the amount of retouching I had to do to make this presentable, my sensor is about due for a good clean!

Micro Herbs

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I pinched out the tops of the stems on my basil plant the other day, as it was heading skywards at an alarming rate, and I prefer having tasty leaves to eat rather than miles of stem to look at! This seems to have had the desired effect of making it sprout lots of tiny little leaves further down the stem.

This one's a 3x macro made by focus stacking 64 individual shots with Helicon Focus. I find the process quite interesting to watch, so I've added a little time lapse video of the stack being created (after the jump) for anyone who cares.