Winter Photography IV: Desiccated Leaves

Desiccated Japanese Red Maple Leaf; Frozen for 3 1/2 years (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II; 12-40mm f/2.8 lens @ 40mm; 1/6th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200
Focus stacking of 11 images in Helicon Focus

Another in the series of things to photograph during the long winter months....

The entire east coast of the U.S. has just endured a very cold late winter spell.  The temperature never rose above the 30s (2-4 C) here in SE Virginia the other day.  Barely into the 40s (4-6 C) yesterday.  Luckily, normal weather return in a week or so.  I wanted to photograph but didn't necessarily want to go outdoors to photograph as the wind whipped and was brutally cutting, I thought I would do some close-up photography inside. But what to photograph?  

Almost 3 1/2 years ago, I picked up some colorful leaves that had fallen during the fall season.  I put them in the freezer between two sheets of wax paper and placed heavy paperback books on them.  I then placed them into a freezer.  I had forgotten about those leaves but saw them in the freezer the other day.  Those leaves would make a good subject for indoor winter photography on these cold early spring days.

There are two different leaves represented here.  The top one is a bit larger than the bottom one.  Both leaves are from a Japanese Red Maple tree.  Even though the leaf at the top of the post was pressed between a shelf and heavy books, it regained some of its original shape as it started to thaw.  The red color remained, although it has been weakened by the desiccation of being in a freezer for 40 months.  As you know, a refrigerator and freezer will extract moisture from anything that isn't sealed.  You can see the result in these close-ups.  Mummified leaves!

Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-40mm f/2.9 lens @ 40mm + built-in 2x converter and resized to
original size in-camera.  This is a crop that represents 1/2 of the full image; 1/5th sec. @ f/11; ISO 200
(click to enlarge)

I placed each leaf on an old piece of black velvet which was spread across a small table in front of windows which faced north.  No direct sunlight, just the indirect north light of the outdoors to light this subject.

I used my Olympus E-M1 Mark II with the 12-40mm f/2.8 lens and placed the camera securely on a tripod for the series of images I planned to make.  The 12-40 has very nice close up abilities and is a very sharp lens.  Its resolving power is also excellent.  I made a large number of images from single images with shallow depth of field to ones I focus stacked.

The top image is a composite of 11 focus stacked images made from all JPEGs.  I used Helicon Focus to build the composite.  The camera's automatic focus bracketing feature was employed.  I was able to set the number of images I wanted the camera to make and the change in focus between each image I thought would accomplish my goal.

This second image is from a single image.  I focused as close as the lens would allow, then turned on the camera's built-in 2x converter and made the image.  The camera then resizes the cropped image back to its original size and saves it as a JPEG.  I then cropped the image to about 50% of the original.  

The image below is the same leaf shown in the second image but with scale to give you an idea of the leaf's actual size.  For those of you outside the U.S., that is a "dime" or a coin worth 10 cents.  It is 17.9mm in diameter.  The coin appears somewhat skewed (not round) as the image was made at a 45 degree angle and not straight down.  This image was created with "focus stacking' as opposed to "focus bracketing" as was the one above. "Focus stacking" is a feature in this camera whereas you focus on the center of your desired image and the camera automatically takes a series of images changing focus distance in front of and in back of you original focus point.  The camera then automatically merges all the images and produces a JPEG.

One of the reasons for this exercise in winter photography was to further explore the special features of this camera.  As I have said many, many times, by fully understanding your gear, its attributes and limitations, you will be in a much better position to achieve success in creating the images you desire.

Just to demonstrate how small this leaf is, here is an image with a U.S. 10 cent piece (17.9mm diameter)

Its fun being creative and playing around in photographic ways we normally don't practice.  By trying new things, it improves our skills and, at least for me, gets me energized.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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