Lord Ashcroft:- An Interim Report

[nickjohnson]

This is by way of a quick note about my experience so far with the Lord Ashcroft limited edition signature model four way slider focus rail thingy.

#1


I got another clamp / head so that I could mount the rig using quick release plates – per my previous post. The focus slider works well and I'm able to make stack focus exposures with ease – so far so good. The problem now is that the whole rig – clamp + slider + plate + lens + camera + grip + angle finder – weighs in at a lardy 3kgm. The load limit on my tripod ball head is 5kgm. So when I angle the rig up or down the friction clamp struggles. So will need a new ball head – oh well.

We have had a period of calm misty weather. So here are some totally over the top, quick and dirty stacks, just because. They are all taken at f8 with about 1mm focus change between frames. Each stack has between 40 and 120 images.

#2


#3


#4


#5


#6

[macromeister]

Lord Ashcroft:- An Interim Report

;D ;D ;D That's going to sort them out at Conservative HQ! www.lordashcroft.com/ ;D ;D ;D

Stunning shots! I'm glad you find the rail works quite well. I'm a little confused why you need so many images for some of them. If you are moving 1mm a pop that's nearly two inches for 40 shots. Or have I got that wrong?

They certainly are stunning though. As well as having great focus the colours and clarity are superb. Can't fault them, and don't want to. Did you use flash? It looks as if you did, but it's not in your rig shot.

[rasbury]

Great looking images Nick.Need to get me one of them there focus rails myself.

[Barry]

I like 5 and 6, the others look very contrasty on my monitor.

[Stevewebb]

#6 is simply exquisite Nick.

Looks like you are enjoying your new toy immensely.

[jeeperman]

Very good work Nick, I do agree a bit contrasty but not much to far.

[chrisc]

I don't think they are terribly contrasty as much as the black point is set too high. You could offset that by opening your fill light a bit or picking a different gray point that is more toward say a 22-24% gray.

[nickjohnson]

Thanks Rob, Ron, Barry, Steve, Paul, and Chris.

Like I said, the example images are over the top, quick and dirty.

@rob – reason I did so many frames is that I wanted to start to nail what inter frame shift one can use for a given magnification and f stop – in practical picture taking. I used a 1mm move here because that is the smallest increment that the slider has marked. Oh – and no flashing was used. My raincoat was fully buttoned up at all times.

@ron – notwithstanding some of my previous comments re weight of rig, I don't see how you can go wrong with this. I understand you have a more sensible size lens / camera combo – so for the money I think it's good value.

@all – some of the examples are a bit “sudden” I know. I'm trying to work out how much pp work to do on the frames before stacking verses pp work once the stack is done. You see, when you work on the frames prior to stacking you have to work on one and then sync the rest. So most of what your working on is OOF – just like a normal macro / close focus shot. When all the frames are stacked a lot of the OOF goes away – and some of the pleasing subtlety goes with it!

[nickjohnson]

….. and in braking news. We learn from a reliable – but unattributed source – that Lord Ashcroft will soon be mounted with a new bald head. We will show you pictures just as soon as we have them (and stopped laughing for long enough to post them).