The Macro Book Club

Happy Monday everyone!

Hydroxyquinone, Vitamin C and acetanalide in Alcohol

It really feels like Monday today. It has been a very busy weekend, but I have quite a lot to show for it. Most of my time, since Thursday’s stream have been taken up by microscope cleaning and book reading. The microscopes needed to be taken apart and cleaned because they are bing morphed into precision focus rails and dirt or old grease will not help with the precision. These builds are already past due and have been held up waiting on parts to arrive. I think I have everything now, but it might be the last time that I do. My Chinese parts supplier has raised the price of parts by 250% or more, on almost everything. Unfortunately, US based outlets have followed suit and components that I was getting for less than $2 each a week ago are now $16-18 a piece. I am unsure how this is going to  sort itself out in the long term, but for right now I will have to make some tough decisions about whether or not I can afford to do too much more of this work.

The guts of three Olympus BH2 Scopes - clean for the first time in 30 years

The book reading was to prepare for this week’s first Livestream, Macro Talk, at 8PM on Tuesday - this week I am going to review a few of my favorite macro books in our first episode of the Macro Book Club - most of these are relatively new, but not all.

During the livestream I will give you an overview of the book’s contents, discuss its strengths and weaknesses, tell you why I like it (or chose it), and either recommend it, or not. It is my hope that this will become more like a real book club in the not too distant future - where you will be able to upload your own review of a book to  my app, and have it presented at an upcoming Book Club episode - stay tuned for more! Here is your link to the show - https://youtube.com/live/Z-m15fuF_JU?feature=share

The books I will be reviewing this week are as follows:

1. Dragonflies of North America by Ed Lam - https://amzn.to/4jMXZn6

2. Tiger Beetles of the Southeastern United States, by Giff Beaton, R. Stephen Krotzer, and Brian D. Holt - https://amzn.to/4lPw8o8

3. Beyond Extreme Closeup Photography - by Julian Cremona - https://amzn.to/4iAXQly

4. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa, by D. J. Patterson and Stuart Hedley - https://amzn.to/4jY5vvI

There may another one or two, depending on how long the first four take - we shall see.

Next up, on Thursday, May 1, at 2PM, we will be going over the submissions to the April Competition, and announcing the winners. The topic this month was Food/Drink, a category that has always generated some really lovely images. This one will be no exception! I hope to have tricked someone into being a guest judge by then, but as usual I may have left it a little too late. It will be fun, regardless! Here is your link -  https://youtube.com/live/I39IuV8gZqU?feature=share

On Saturday we have AfterStack 23 - and I am embarrassed to say I don’t actually know what Bud is bringing this week - and we just talked on the phone earlier today - I had forgotten how bad my memory is ((pun intended). You will an invitation to get into the event but it is free and it is fun -

Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: AfterStack22

Time: May 3, 2025 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=85116207322

Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

This morning’s gadget - hats off to TXCromer for the inspiration

This morning I was inspired to design and print a couple of double layer diffusion platforms for small insects. The inspiration came from TXCromer, who had come up with a similar design some months ago.

The Cromer/Walls diffuser

A friend had asked me to print one of Mr. Comer’s diffusers, and after examining the drawings I  thought of a few changes that would make the device a little more applicable to my style of studio macro.

The concept was largely the same, but a few changes were going to be required to move some of the supports down and out of the way of the incoming photons, especially when the light was coming from below. Mr. Cromer’s Intractable article is really excellent and well worth a look - it can be found here - https://www.instructables.com/Starship-Light-Tunnel-Diffuser/

Cool supports holding up the diffuser frame

Here is an early prototype (early this morning, that is) - though I have made three other versions over the course of the day - I am pretty happy with the final piece and will post the G-Code over on my app, in case you want to make one - just be aware they take forever to print and must include a lot of supports.

slowly getting there

A little housekeeping - I was hoping to have got a head start on the video projects I am planning, but my manufacturing side-hustle has kept me a little on the busy side this last couple of week. I will get to them eventually! By the way, I will be closing the sign-up period for cross-polarizer platforms and microscope focus blocks - so if you want to get on the waiting list for either, now is the time to do so. Sign up by sending me a message over on the Walls App!

In closing, this is how I remain partially sane when locked in the bunker - anyone fancy a game?

Weevil time!

Macro Jeopardy is HERE!

An exciting week of photography and foolishness starts today.

one reason i don’t live in the mekong delta

Some real treats to look forward to in the coming 6 day! Starting with Macro Talk on Tuesday at 8PM where the discussion is going to be all about enlarger lenses.

These seem to be among the least well understood lenses in our regular arsenal so I think spending a little time talking about the many misunderstandings surrounding these little treasures might be time well spent. The things I want to clear up include:

• What is an enlarger lens

• Why do we use them in Macro,

• Reverse, Extend, or both?

• The limits

• Aperture, focal length & diffraction

• Stacking enlarger lenses - Whaaat!?

• Setups that work & setups that don’t

• When to reach for an objective

This isn’t everything, but these are the high points. I may be able to include a little demo using some of the enlarger lenses I have been evaluating lately. Come to this livestream and I promise you will leave with a solid working understanding of how to get the very most out of these treasured lenses. Here is a link to the livestream, at 8PM Tuesday!

https://youtube.com/live/RJJsWfgXW4E?feature=share

Four stripped focus blocks ready for stripping, PaiNting and reassembly

I spent the entire weekend cleaning microscope parts, dismantling focus blocks, 3D printing parts, and inventing new tools for the workshop. It was a lot of fun but I woke up exhausted and ready for a break on Monday (today) If I have time I want to show you around the workshop, so that you can see what all goes on in the studio when I am in full-conveyor belt mode. Though it might need to wait for the Pzoom, as I have a special treat for you on Thursday! Macro Talk Too this week features the very first installment of the new MACRO JEOPARDY - the world’s most exciting internet macro photography game show (strictly my own, heavily biased opinion)!

As a teaser, here is a screen shot of the game board for this real time contest of wits! I have spent several hours putting together what I think are an excellent selection of macro-related questions.

If it is a success I will see if there is a way for us to do this with real contestants, using zoom - I am thinking about finding a sponsor or two and putting up some nice prizes. I might even draw the names of contestants from the competition entries. This week is just a trial balloon to see if folks are interested in having a little cerebral fun at the end of a long week. If you want to join in the fun, your link too the stream is right here -

https://youtube.com/live/A55-hCkZhrw?feature=share

Of course, it is not the end of my week as there are a couple of interesting events lined up for Saturday - starting air 10AM with a 2-hour Pzoom - a face to face Zoom meeting with  my Patreon Supporters. As always we will have a lot to talk about, including a special segment on how to dismantle, inspect, clean and rebuild a modern microscope. The rest of our time will focus on viewer updates, Q&A, introductions, and a lot of macro-equipment chit chat. Always great fun and an awesome opportunity for us to learn a bit more from one another.

Right after the Pzoom we have this month’s Tangent Show with Larry and me - talking about Fusion 360, modeling, and 3D printing. I am hoping to get some help with a really complicated job that is making me think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I am making a camera, a real digital camera, and it is proving a lot more difficult that I thought it would be. So, depending on what Larry has lined up for us, I may be trying to get a little nudge in the right direction on this project. This is all happening at 12:30pm this Saturday, April 26th, with the recording released on YouTube early next week.

My sweatshop - only without the sweating

I did come up with a very handy gadget for making sure my motor drive assemblies will fit on a microscope focus block after all the holes are drilled - a ver irritating problem when they do not.

It looks deceptively simple, but these things are designed to clip onto a stripped focus block and stay there until all four holes have been marked. This works extremely well and saves a tremendous amount of time.

Here is a drawing of the gadget, as yet unnamed, and a picture of it doing its thing on a BH2 Olympus focus block being readied for a coat of paint.

A couple of you have asked to see my new bandsaw - well here it is!

It is not nearly as easy to use as it looks. In fact, by the time I have cleaned up all the cut lines, I don’t think it will have saved me much time, if any. The saw was not too expensive and it will definitely be put to good use in the future.

A Happy looking weevil

I have not been taking nearly enough pictures of late, but hope to turn that around soon, as the weather continues to improve - stay tuned!

another partially braided acetanilide and ascorbic acid crystal complex

Hope you can make it to the Jeopardy on Thursday! It is going to be a hoot!

Later, Allan

Spring? What Spring?

Spring sprung and then sprang back in - it’s a Middle Earth thing - and yes - I am pretty sure that is the correct use of sprung and sprang (perfect tense past participle vs. sample past tense), but even if it isn’t it is still cold again in the bunker. Which would be less of a deal had my little electric heater hung on to life for a few days longer. No worries - the cold builds character, I’m sure.

Spring in Alabama

Even if the weather had been perfect, I don’t think I would have had time to get out for a little photography. The bunker is busy right now now, with lenses to evaluate, a printer to learn how to use, several hundred cross polarizers to print and assemble … and so much more. So with that in mind I hope you will forgive my departure from our usual livestream format on Tuesday. I have decided to take a day off from writing and researching photography content to instead write and research some no-photographic material for Macro Talk on Tuesday. Here is what I am planning to do - Since getting rid of my television some three years ago (or is it longer?) the only type of content that I consume is that found on one of mankind’s greatest inventions - YouTube. This doesn’t count written material - I am always reading something or other. But when it comes to video content, it is straight YouTube. I will occasionally mention a channel that I particularly value or enjoy, but I don’t think I have ever just gone down my list of subscriptions and told you what they are about, why I like them, and why you might want to check a few of them out.

I will start Macro Talk by talking a little bit about YouTube in general - like what factors are important in assessing the quality of a channel, and what are the characteristics of a great presenter. I will share my thoughts on click-bait and give you my opinion on video length, before launching into a rapid fire rundown of the channels that I subscribe to and watch regularly - there are a lot of them, and some you will know, but many you will most likely not. But whether you are attracted to the same content as I am, or not, I think you will probably learn a little bit about what makes me tick. Of course, I do recognize that it is the height of conceit to think for one minute that you will care about the content I like, but I am going to do it anyway because I think you might really enjoy some of these channels.

Here is your link to this first livestream of the week - https://youtube.com/live/hw10BIuFIx8?feature=share

Oh and before I forget, I will list all of the channels to which I subscribe, and all the ones I talk about on Tuesday at the bottom of this post.

Two days after that and the party is over - time to get back into macro. In Macro Talk Too I am going to share with you the decision process that I use when selecting a lens for a particular photograph. I use a fairly simple decision tree to narrow down the list of options for a given set of circumstances and I want to go over that process with you on Thursday at 2PM. This should be a very useful discussion for many of you and I expect it might even stir up a little heated back and forth in the cheap seats (you know who you are!).

Macro Talk Too on Thursday at 2PM - don’t miss it - and here is your invitation to that event - https://youtube.com/live/98XO7IeK5rk?feature=share

We had a spectacular Pzoom last weekend, so that means we do not have one on Saturday - but instead we have what promises to be a very interesting discussion on Topaz Photo AI. In this session we will demonstrate what the program can do, and what it cannot, before opening the discussion to the audience for them to share how they use this powerful tool. As always, you are encouraged to bring images you may be struggling with as well as pictures that demonstrate how use this smart editing tool. Just pop over to my Google Drive and drop your picture(s) in the appropriate folder. We will retrieve the images in time for Afterstack. You are invited but will need this information to join the meeting, which is free for anyone who wishes to attend!

Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: AfterStack 21 - Topaz - Photo AI

Time: Apr 19, 2025 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=88644952456

Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

That is about it for this week. All I have still to do is give you the list of my favorite YouTube channels.

SPOILER ALERT - if you do not want to know what I will be going over on Tuesday, read no further!

SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Veritasium

Cutting Edge Engineering,

Inheritance Machining,

DroneBot Workshop,

The Engineering Mind

Not An Engineer,

Tom Stanton,

Product Design Online,

Three Blue One Brown,

Daniele Tartaglia,

Steve Mould,

Linus Tech Tips,

Paul's Hardware,

Sabine Hossenfelder,

GreatScott,

HomoFaciens,

MicrobeHunter,

Jeremy Fielding,

Uri Tuchman,

The B1M, and

Journey to the Microcosmos

PHOTOGRAPHY

Thomas Heaton,

Stewart Wood,

fototripper,

Jan Wegener,

Phlearn,

Mark Denney,

Peter McKinnon,

Sean Tucker,

Steve Perry,

BrainRight,

Planet Fungi,

Micael Widell, and

Grzegorz Baran

PILOT/FLYING

Pilot Debrief,

Mentour Pilot,

74 Gear

MUSIC

Billy Strings

Jacob Collier,

Rick Beato,

Paul Davids,

PomplamooseMusic,

Davie504,

El Estaprio Siberiano,

Make Weird Music,

Emmet Cohen,

Andrew Rooney Drums,

David Bruce Composer, and

Justin Hawkins Rides Again

OTHER

Gido's Fishing Adventures,

NKFHerping,

LockPickingLawyer,

SoftWhiteUnderbelly,

Mark Wiens,

Today I Found Out, and

Stated Clearly

The Bugs are Back!

Greetings everyone! It is Monday, April 7th and the beginning of another busy week. But before I let you know all we have coming up in the next few day I would like to clean up a few details from last week. There were several links that I mentioned but did get to add to the program notes for last Thursday’s livestream and I am going to give you these now.

The first is the link for Steve Young’s “Mixes and Musings”  - a beautiful book  with some of Steves slime mold photography accompanied by his original poetry. It is a very unique and lovely book that any macro photographer would love tp have in their library! The link is - https://www.youngphotography.com.au

Next up is the link to the Stackshot 3X controller - if ypu are looking to upgrade to a multi-axis controller, here is the link - https://cognisys-inc.com/focus-stacking/stackshot-pkgs/stackshot3x-rail-pkg.html

I talked about doing a limited number of microscope focus block conversions for high precision, high magnification focus stacking. The cost for one of these conversions is $350 ($200 for Patreon Supporters) and does not include the price of the microscope. You will have to source the microscope and send it to me. The best place to find”Parts Only” Olympus BH2 microscopes in eBay and here is a link to show you an example of what you should be looking for - https://www.ebay.com/itm/167374050963?_skw=BH2+microscope+for+parts&itmmeta=01JR8FVJDWC1WZ5WTY5QA8F3X8&hash=item26f8455693:g:lnwAAOSwVqBn0sDX&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1f4QFuDz4Wt5%2B5JxClPBsSS1NH7vbazNPqmPTU6ovVQ5YpdOP3oAotf8FG1DiJS%2BNHG8a8y8HseQPw83Pfe1hBxNFggmGDJT09R2fZ%2BeALecAqyvURUzIC2pnSYvV%2Fj1z1TA2mF9vhup%2BAirlCB3%2BBPmCM5tWTkwNIa%2FYFB9k8Bgc0m6iO2e0lSvDC28uavHWpB20MESesvrCnef%2B7rn9VfEidinKyDHeBRgHmp%2FCEjIMAnm4pbdmxm45IojPI9TW0szv1Y1PHYgFgtRHX5M7SVxyoAGWSUPUTVK3imNayStA%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABFBMpKfuj8Jl

It is very important that you confirm that the fine focus on the focus block is working. If it is NOT working when I receive the microscope, I will evaluate for possible repair, which may increase the total cost of the conversion but will let you know before starting the conversion. If it is broken and cannot be repaired I will return the scope to you and you will need to cover the shipping cost. If you would like to get on the list for this service, please message me through the Walls-app (www.walls-app.com). This is the only way in which I will be taking orders.

I am also going to make a limited series of the new Crystal Cross Polarizing Photography Platform. To get on this list you also must message me through the walls-app. The cost for each unit is $220 ($110 for Patreon Supporters). These devices are made on a first-come-first-served basis and will only be available through the rest of this month (April 2025). The link to the app is https://www.walls-app.com.

Next up is the Platypod device - this can be purchased by following this link too the Platypod site - https://www.platypod.com/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADFaxwjPJTkBedgUEpxhRZFkT9xvI&gclid=Cj0KCQjw782_BhDjARIsABTv_JCY90l_UL6jhUgNbZ1QnGxtm0bNr9O8sufu6jOJyyNkz8-MHxzesOoaAg7IEALw_wcB

I talked bout several books that I am currently reading - here are the links -

Kirsten Hines - Wild Florida - a wonderful book and available through Amazon - https://amzn.to/3GbRLP1

Matt Doogue - Close-up Photography - a very thorough and easy to read text - https://amzn.to/4j0tqKR

The Wildlife Photography Workshop by Ben Hall and Ross Hoddinott - https://amzn.to/3EmJMOB

OK - so what is coming up this week? On Tuesday’s Macro Talk I will be announcing the results of last month’s competition and showing the images. Always a lot of fun and this should be no exception, given the theme for March, which was “What Is It?”. The link is right here - https://youtube.com/live/T1lgG2LjCUY?feature=share

By the way, our competition theme for April is an old favorite - “Food & Drink”, though “Food and/or Drink” might be a little more accurate. Your image(s) should be close-up but I will relax the magnification requirement to only 4:1 - one quarter life-size. Former winners only get to submit one entry but everyone else can submit two images. I am current starting negotiations with Rik Littlefield and hope to have everything set up for a second annual stereo photography competition for the month of June, 2025 - stay tuned!

On Thursday, Macro Talk Too will focus on my strategy for springtime insect photography and your link is right here - https://youtube.com/live/RjBtMhzrT2I?feature=share

Saturday we get back to our regular schedule for Pzoom get-togethers. The link is over on the Patreon site - https://www.patreon.com/allanwallsphotography

As this is not technically our second regular Pzoom of the month, we DO NOT have a Tangent scheduled for this Saturday - the next Tangent episode is scheduled for 4/26/25.

That is all I have for you this week but I also wanted to mention some of the video projects I am currently working on. Some of the video content you will be seeing in the coming weeks include:

How to Convert an Olympus Microscope for High Precision Focus Stacking

Build Your Own Cross Polarization Platform

Unusual Enlarger Lenses - Reviews

Using Eli-Illumination with High-NA Microscope Objectives

Making Your Own Camera

There are more ideas in development but this list will probably be the next video content released on the channel.

Finally, a picture…

Diopters and Photogrammetry

LATE ENTRY!

I forgot to include the AfterStack19 invitation in my original posting of this blog - please join us on Saturday at 10AM for one of the most helpful and informative post-production round tables you are likely to find! Here is the invitation (and it is FREE)…

Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Afterstack19

Time: Mar 22, 2025 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=81124304990

Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

And here is your link to the Google Drive folder where you may deposit any images you would like to share with the group - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XA7tv9O2SW0TGRjiIIRBzMRMAu-ZAkKe?usp=share_link

And now, back to the post -

Greetings All,

incoming!

I am so glad Monday is here and I can take a breather after a marathon weekend of getting caught up on all the projects that have been piling up since the beginning of the year. This is my desk this morning…

If you are waiting on me to send you something, there is a good chance it will be on its way to you before the end of the day. If you are with the IRS and are waiting for me to pay my tax bill for last year, please be patient.

Before telling you about this week’s activities, I need to remind you that I will be out of the studio next week and so there will be no Macro Talk Too on Thursday 3/27 and no Pzoom on Saturday 3//29/25. I hope to be back streaming on April Fools Day, when I will give you a rundown of what I learned at the Florida Convention of Camera Clubs during my visit.

This week I will be kicking things off with a discussion, mostly for newcomers, on the subject of close-up filters in macro photography. I will be giving an overview of close-up filters and how they can be used in macro photography, along with useful information on the best filters available today. To join the conversation, follow this link at 8PM on Tuesday - https://youtube.com/live/3vj2mCfX4pY?feature=share

On Thursday’s Macro Talk Too I will be talking about my experience with photogrammetry in macro photography. I was asked to do this a little while ago, so here it is! The link to join the discussion is right here -  https://youtube.com/live/pPmy3Uh3kDE?feature=share

On Saturday I will be hosting AfterStack 19 and in this episode it will be all about your pictures. You are invited to drop any images that you are having g trouble with into our shared Google drive folder and we will do our best to help you figure out how to get the best of each of them. Be sure to put them in the sub-folder for 3/22/25 so that Bud and I can get them in time for Saturday.

Does anyone actually own one of these mythical lenses? Photo Courtesy of Robert O’Toole

I will leave it at that today as I have a ton of preparation for the week ahead! See you soon!

Short Focus - A Primer

All my clocks are broken. Or so I thought on Sunday morning, for maybe the 120th time in my life. Of course they are not broken and the sun is still above the horizon at 5:30 PM on this first Sunday evening of “normal” time. Another weekend has flashed past during which I developed a revolting sinus infection (my first) and built a bunch of photography gadgets. I also spent a little time thinking hard about whether or not I should wade into the murky waters of small-scale manufacture and actually try to make a little money selling some of this stuff.

A focus block conversion

There are pros and cons, of course. On the plus side, I really enjoy the process of designing, drawing, prototyping, and finishing all these projects. I love testing them and using them, too. I like getting feedback from my friends and working to improve on designs and building approaches. I even enjoy sourcing the best low-cost parts for the projects. Now, a big part of this is that I work on these projects to relax and test myself - the only schedule is the one in my head and I seldom allow my “hobby” to get in the way of my work. But what happens when someone is paying real money for one of these things - how relaxing will the work be then? And then there is the whole money thing. I am not very good about asking people for money because it makes me feel uncomfortable, as does receiving it when I do work up the courage to ask. Becoming a maker and seller of these gadgets would mean I would have to do this a lot (hopefully), and that sounds a little scary.

The conversion motorized

Neither the focus block stacking device nor the cross polarizer platform were cheap to make. That is because neither was close to finished until I had drawn, printed and assembled at least half a dozen prototypes - a process taking several weeks and a bunch of parts. But even accounting for my time, they also weren’t that terribly expensive to make either. So, at the end of the day, I am not exactly sure what they are worth, and I absolutely need to know that before I will sell one. I try not to talk about this channel’s finances - it is too embarrassing - but an infusion of profit from something like this would  be most useful and very welcome. Then there is the question of what I should actually try to sell - a complete, ready to use gadget, fully assembled and ready to use? Or a kit, complete with plans and instructions? Or some other hybrid arrangement? I just don’t know.

One simple eye of a velvet ant at 20X - no reason, just like it

So I am going to ask you what you think and I would be most grateful for any feedback you can offer. It should go without saying, but this is just me asking you what you think. It is not a solicitation and I will record your feedback without identifying information. If you feel so inclined, please answer a couple of simple questions for me - you can do so in the comment section below this post, or you can contact me in any other way that is convenient. You are also welcome to answer only the parts you want to. Here we go:

1. Would you be interested in buying a fully ready to use cross polarizing birefringent crystal viewer and imaging platform?

2. How much would you consider a fair price to get one?

3. Would you be interested in scoring a microscope focusing attachment to use with your stackShot or WeMacro controller?

4. How much would the whole assembly, not counting a microscope, be worth to you (frame, fine focus interface, Motor, cables)?

5. Would you be interested in getting a free standing, ready to use fine focus device including a microscope focus block and the drive assembly (for use with whatever controller you already have)?

6. How much would that be worth to you?

7. Is there anything else that I have invented/built in the last few years that you would like to have a chance to buy?

8. Any other words of wisdom or encouragement?

the testing platform

Thanks for doing this - I will let you know what the bottom line is in a few days. Now here is a picture of a bridge. No reason.

So what are we up to this week?

On Tuesday, in Macro Talk, I am going to tell you everything you need to know about the technique of short focusing in high magnification macro photography. It is surprisingly straight forward, but can add a very exciting dimension to your use of objectives as camera lenses. I will cover what it is for, how to set up the equipment, the potential problems, and the gear you will need. Then I will tell you exactly how to evaluate and relay lenses that you think may work for short focus and actually walk through the process using one of Susan Seaford’s telephoto Nikon lenses. Fun! The link is here… https://youtube.com/live/GAsu-jhdp-s?feature=share

On Thursday we are going to take one more look at the two macro-gadgets I have been working on for the last month and I will complete the circle by giving you step-by-step instructions on how to take full advantage of the two 3D print files that I released earlier today. Literally everything you need to know to build and use both devices for your own rig. Even if you have no interest in building either of them, there will still be a ton of interesting stuff to talk about. Don’t miss this one! The link… https://youtube.com/live/7WhjIWPh8fE?feature=share

Saturday is Pzoom - a private face to face meeting with my awesome Patreon supporters, where they get to ask questions, lodge complaints, hurl obscenities, and just have a good old time with their host - me! I will have a few surprises for the group and we are going to have a very good time - promise! The invitation is posted over on my Patreon page at www.patreon.com/allanwallsphotography

If you missed the last AfterStack, fear not, as it is now available by following this YouTube link to the recording!

A busy week and a lot to prepare for, so I had better get my skates on! Hope to see you soon! All the best!

Allan

What Is This?

March is upon us and it is off to a hectic start. I have spent much of the weekend going through the excellent entries for the February competition. It is such an interesting batch of entries that I have decided to use Tuesday evening’s Macro Talk for announcing the results and discussing the entries. I always enjoy these livestreams and I think there is a lot to learn from the process. That will be at 8PM on Tuesday and the link too the stream is right here - https://youtube.com/live/huzYrBtOcqg?feature=share

On Thursday we are going to be getting back to the channel’s macro roots - insect photography! As the winter is slowly winding down in Middle Earth, it will not be long before the bugs return, and to celebrate that fact I would like to spend this week’s Macro Talk Too talking about the easiest and hardest insects to photograph. I will cover both field and studio macro so that after Thursday’s stream you may have a feel for the challenges you want to set for yourself this year. It should be a lot of fun and you can access the stream using this link - https://youtube.com/live/zla07Wz0G4E?feature=share

Talking about the competition, the theme for March 2025 is…

What is this?

We are going to try something altogether different in our March Macro Photography Competition. I was thinking back to a feature that was published every week in our local newspaper when I was a lad. A photograph would be presented and the reader would be asked to identify the  subject of the image. The pictures were always close-up shots and the reader’s task was to figure out what we were looking at. I was actually quite good at this and would often give the correct answer

In March, I want you take a picture of something small but common, while not giving enough information for a rapid identification. The winning picture will be a good quality image, at 1:1 or closer. It will be of a subject that is common enough that anyone will be familiar with it. The part of the subject shown in the image will show characteristics that are fairly unique to, or characteristic of this subject. The perfect picture will make the viewer think “Of course! I see that now!”. The judges will assign points for technical merit, originality, and the cleverness of the  puzzle picture. The judge does not have to solve your puzzle entry for you to get a perfect score, but if it is too easy you may lose points.

In this competition you must name the entry picture(s) as usual, and the title may be a clue, if you wish, but I also need you to provide the solution after the title. The judges will not see the solution prior to seeing the images.

This week, on Saturday, we have AfterStack 18, with the discussion to be led by Walter Perrott. The subject is going to be post-production management of focus stacking artifacts. We will probably touch on the retouching process though the majority of the time will be spent talking about the various techniques for artifact removal in Photoshop and other editing programs. If you have any challenging focus stacked output images that you would like to bring to the group, please send them to me or to Bud through the Google Drive link shown here - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XA7tv9O2SW0TGRjiIIRBzMRMAu-ZAkKe?usp=share_link

And here is your invitation to the discussion -Topic: AfterStack18

Time: Mar 8, 2025 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

That is it for this week - I must run - I have an event to attend and to keep everyone on their toes, I plan to arrive on time. Hope to see you tomorrow!

The Great Thaw

That is what it feels like, after two sun-filled days with temperatures in the 40’s and low 50’s - what the Middle-Earthers refer to as “warm”. It is not warm, of course, but one could be forgiven for thinking it is after two weeks of soul-destroying single digit highs and digit-destroying sub-zero lows. And some of the ice and snow did melt this afternoon, though not for long - most of the water in Middle Earth has phase-shifted back to the solid form. While not many who know me would accuse me of being prone to optimism, I have come across a silver lining to this meteorological catastrophe called winter. My fear of freezing to death out in the elements has forced me to face up to my fear of freezing to death in this basement, and this has allowed me to attack a few projects that have been somewhat neglected since the beginning of winter, seven years ago. Throwing myself into these projects has renewed my enthusiasm for making stuff, and you know what happens when I get enthusiastic about stuff- I feel duty-bound to get you enthusiastic about stuff too. That is my goal for this, the last week of February, 2025.

Kicking things off on Tuesday I aim going to come at the subject of DIY obliquely, walking you through the steps required to modify your macro platform for use at high magnification and high resolution. At the heart of these modifications is a gadget that, to the best of my knowledge, cannot be purchased but must be constructed. I plan to show you exactly how this is done, from start to finish, in under an hour. The link to this episode of Macro Talk, which starts at 8PM on

On Thursday, in Macro Talk Too, I will come at DIY in macro photography more directly, breaking down the various skills and tools that I believe are worth acquiring, in order to get the most out of our macro photography. I will do this by giving multiple examples of how my growing experience with tools and techniques have paid off in my macro experience over the years. I think it should be a lot of fun and if you would like to join the conversation, here is a link to the livestream on Thursday - https://youtube.com/live/JV1z2k_IatM?feature=share

This is the last week of the February Macro Competition - your pictures must be in before midnight on Friday. The theme for this month is Symmetry and I can’t wait to see what you have come up with! I will announce the theme for March later this week. Saturday is going to be a busy day for me as I will be judging the competition on Saturday while also hosting our first Pzoom meeting of the month. I am trying to come up with a creative way to combine these two activities and I think I may have a workable solution - should be fun!

For anyone who is interested, I placed a bid on a microscope this morning. It is a gorgeous Olympus CX53 fluorescence scope with DIC. It comes with a full complement of high NA objectives, DIC prisms and a multifunction condenser. I has literally everything I want in microscope - but I lost the auction in the last 5 minutes. I’m not really surprised - my bid was ridiculously low for the almost new $20K microscope, so it didn’t take too much to beat it and someone was watching closely. The final price was only $1,700, but that is out of my comfort zone until the IRS has my pound of flesh. You win some, you lose some!

Sorry for the lateness of this post - I lost my whole Monday, helping a friend out of a bind. Tuesday was spent getting my two microscope focusing devices ready to ship to two very patient photographers.

I hope you have a great week and don’t miss Thursday’s livestream - lots of really original stuff to tell you about!

Allan

Shifting Perspectives on Epi-illumination

Greetings all!

The title of today’s post is about as accurate as I could get but the post itself is going to be very brief. It does contain a couple of important announcements that you need to hear - so I will get right to the point.

I have been informed that the competition photo-naming convention that I announced a couple of weeks ago has some formatting issues, so I am going to change the instructions accordingly. This will take effect immediately, but I will not disqualify mis-named images until the March competition. The format for naming your entry (and the filename for the image - they need to be the same) is as follows…

_exact.image.title_your first name.your last name.image file type

Every entry must have the same filename and image title and both must be in exactly the same format. There should be NO spaces, so words are to be separated using a period. The convention I announced earlier used “quotation marks” - these are problematic for some computers, as are spaces, so I replacing the quotation marks with underscores (_) and the spaces with periods (.). Using this convention a typical entry would look like this …

_green.weevil.foot_allan.walls.jpg
I hope that is completely clear but if you have any questions, please ask. I really do not want to have to disqualify any images.

We had an excellent Tangent livestream this last weekend, with lots of useful information for anyone using 3D modeling or printing. The session was recorded and the recording is now posted on YouTube - this link will take you right to the recording …

This coming weekend we have Episode 17 of AfterStack and this week we will take a look at the Photoshop focus stacking utility. This can be a very handy tool but it pays to know its limitations and how to use it. We will also be discussing any images you have been having trouble with, and because of that, the next announcement is also important …

I have set up a Google Drive Folder named “AfterStack” that can only be accessed by following this link -

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XA7tv9O2SW0TGRjiIIRBzMRMAu-ZAkKe?usp=sharing

Please save this link and use it for sending images that you would like to have discussed in AfterStack.

Don’t forget AfterStack 17 starts air 10AM this Saturday - Here is your link to the meeting -

Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: AfterStack 17

Time: Feb 22, 2025 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=83179811857

Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

Last Saturday’s Pzoom recording is available to Patreon Supporters and can be found on my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/allanwallsphotography) and while I am thinking about it, I have also set up a Pzoom Google Drive Folder and the link to that folder is also over on Patreon.

Getting to this week’s planned Macro Talk and Macro Talk Too discussions, we are going to delve into a couple of technical topics that will be valuable to anyone interested in expanding their macro skill set or trying something new. In our first livestream we are going to take a look at epi-illumination using a very inexpensive coaxial lighting setup. I will walk through the equipment and demonstrate how the rig should be assembled. I will walk thought the steps for setting up a photograph and make some suggestions for suitable subjects and discuss some of the technical limitations of this technique. There will be plenty of time to answer questions. https://youtube.com/live/NNZTNaj0sVQ?feature=share

On Thursday we will change gears and discuss a technique that is uncommonly applied today, but one that is well worth understanding. Using the tilt, shift, and swing capabilities of some lenses, adapters and bellows to manipulate the focal plane to alter perspective in close-up and macro photography. We will accomplish this while taking a look at one of the most complicated bellows devices ever sold - the Kenlock bellows. I am sure that by the end of this hour you will clearly understand the  title of this livestream! https://youtube.com/live/0J4nqSb1CCc?feature=share

With so much technical discussion in the coming days, I need to get to work on my preparations. I look forward to seeing you at one or more of these events and encourage you top bring any questions you may have.

Iceland Again

Icelandic Glacier Flow by Harold Hall, used by permission

It is Monday, February 9th, 2025 and the week ahead is packed with macro photography. So much macro photography, in fact, that I will not be writing too much about it in this blog post. I will give you all the information about this week’s activities now, so that you can find the links quickly, and then I will get into what I want to tell you about. Tuesday’s Macro Talk will attempt to answer a question that I was asked at the end of last Thursday’s stream. I forget who asked the question, but it was a good one. How do we light highly reflective subjects in macro photography?

It is an excellent question with  several equally useful answers and I will attempt to answer them all by demonstrating all the techniques that I use to control reflections - as that is what lighting shiny objects is all about. Don’t miss this one, especially if you are new to close-up and macro photography. The link to the livestream is here … https://youtube.com/live/ha_uZ4Q10pU?feature=share

While I am answering questions I am going to address a request from Alison Pollack, one of the world’s leading myxomycetes photographers. Alison asked if I would break down my horizontal studio setup and I thought this might be a helpful discussion for anyone thinking about building or improving their own focus stacking rig. While I am doing this I will also walk you through the setup that I described last week for using high numerical aperture infinity conjugate microscope objectives with coaxial lighting. It is not a particularly complicated setup, but there is enough about this rig that is different to make it worthwhile to go over. The link to that Macro Talk Too livestream is here … https://youtube.com/live/HAAnRNy15fA?feature=share

For my Patreon Supporters, don’t forget we have a Pzoom meeting this Saturday from 10AM until Noon. At least part of that time will be spent answering questions and going a little deeper into the high magnification platform discussed on Thursday, along with a very detailed breakdown of every element in my high magnification stacking platform. This was something that Dianne asked me to cover during Saturday’s AfterStack (episode 16). In this section of the meeting I will show every adapter, mount, and optical component to take the guesswork out of what you need to order to assemble your own infinity corrected extreme macro platform. The invitation to this meeting is posted over on Patreon - https://patreon.com/allanwallsphotography.

Talking about AfterStack, Saturday’s live event will soon be available to watch on YouTube.

Believe it or not - this is the second Pzoom weekend of the month already, so right after our meeting wraps up on Saturday, at 12:30PM central to be precise, we have another episode of “Tangent” with Larry and I. For those who are not familiar with this event, it is a monthly 3D modeling workshop designed for anyone who has found designing and printing 3D objects to be a vital part of DIY macro photography. I have not talked to Larry yet this week, but I am hoping to get some feedback and help with a difficult modeling challenge that I am currently working on - designing, modeling, and printing an enclosure for a Raspberry Pi camera. On the surface this might seem like a straightforward process, though it is anything but! This is because the model needs to accommodate a battery pack, a Pi computer, an SSD expansion board, power management expansion board, and a touch screen monitor. Everyone is invited to attend and your invitation is here …

Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Tangent

Time: Feb 15, 2025 12:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

Stop staring!

We have a very busy week ahead and it is packed with information that should be helpful for anyone interested in extreme macro photography. Because of that, I do not feel at all guilty about straying into an altogether different genre of the photographic arts. I want to spend the rest of this post talking about one island, two photographers, and some of nature’s most arresting beauty.

HALL, COULET, & ICELAND’S GLACIAL FLOW

So this story starts with a conversation I had with my good friend Harold Hall. We were just getting caught up after Harold returned from one of his overseas adventures when he brought up this photograph on his computer, and asked me if I knew what I was looking at.

an image of Glacier Flow by Harold Hall, used by permission

Of course, having just returned from the same place that Harold had been when the image was captured, I should have known exactly what it was. I did not. So, like any good macro photographer I started guessing, and with every guess I got further and further from the correct answer. Now, in fairness (to myself), I will remind you that I am a macro photographer, with a primary interest in insect photography. This is relevant because while I was in Iceland long enough to witness the phenomenon that Harold was showing me, I had absolutely no intention of setting foot in nature when the temperature was hovering close to absolute zero. I had already made this almost fatal mistake, leaving the warmth of my vehicle to get a closer look at a bubbling, mud-filled and foul smelling hole in the ground. Our guide, despite having an almost total disregard for the comfort of his charges, did have a sense of humor. This was fully on display when he called this gaseous atrocity a geyser.

old faithful - not

Harold is clearly made of stronger stuff than am I, so he got to see this remarkable display of natural beauty, while hanging out of the side of an airplane. So what exactly are we looking at here? What are these silky braids visible from high above? We are looking at the runoff from a melting glacier, glacial flow, hundreds of braided rivulets of water so filled with silt and chemicals that it takes on these subtle blues and the earthy tones of sand, sienna, sepia, and chocolate. Knowing this is what I am looking at does not help me to understand the dynamics of the scene. Streams do not typically cross one another as these appear to be doing, nor do they usually split off from a larger flow to  wriggle snake-like in search of their own route to the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. Even armed with the knowledge that this is flowing glacial runoff, I still find its disregard for fluid dynamics baffling - and beguiling.

Glacial flow by harold hall, used by permission

I love what Harold has done, capturing the essence of this stunning display of strange beauty. By lucky coincidence, Harold published these pictures in an excellent article that he released the day before I started to write this piece and I would recommend that you take a few minutes to visit his travel and photography blog. Follow this link to his article, https://www.haroldhallphotography.com/ and while you are there, I encourage you to look around and take in some of this remarkable artist’s work. Harold is one of the most gifted photographers that I know and his treatment of this curious aspect of Icelandic vulcanology is a superb example of the man’s gift.  I consider it a great honor to have Harold as one of my long-time supporters and, if he is able too attend our Patreon event this coming weekend, I daresay he will be willing to share with us a little more about his visit to this strange and wonderful island.

Iceland’s version of a “beach”

And then, a couple of days ago, I got a call from a good friend, we will call him William (because that is his name), who wanted me to drop by his office. His office is just a short distance from my studio and I was eager for a short break after my livestream, which had just finished. Arriving in the offices of Sun Chasers, a solar energy company here in Peoria, I was delighted to find another friend of mine already there. Natasha is an artist, dancer, musician, intellectual, and photographer, who also just happens to be married to William, making them one of the most interesting and entertaining couples I have ever met. The office was beautifully appointed and several of the most striking pieces of art on display were the work of Natasha herself. As I was admiring one of her beautiful seascapes, Natasha brought up an image on her laptop and, turning the screen to face me, she asked if I knew what was shown in the photograph. Without a moment’s hesitation I replied, “Of course! This is an aerial view of the glacial flow, possibly from below the Vatnajökull glacier.”, pronouncing the name of the glacier as only an intrepid explorer of ice fields, or a person with a severe sinus infection, could do.

Thanks to this unlikely coincidence, Natasha was now convinced beyond a doubt that I was both sufficiently knowledgable about, and deeply in love with this frigid chunk of North Atlantic basalt to be worthy of an introduction to a second glacial flow photographer in the same week. And so it was that I came to meet Gabriel Coulet and learn of the beautiful and important work that he has been doing on this frigid Scandinavian outpost, halfway between his homes in Chamonix, France, and Quebec, Canada. Gabriel “Gaby” Coulet is a former downhill ski racer, adventurer, businessman and acclaimed freelance photographer. His studio is called “Third Eye Line” - and his landscape photography is absolutely stunning. But you certainly won’t need me to tell you that. After looking through his remarkable portfolio, I decided that his work deserved to be seen, and that his Icelandic “then and now” project would complement Mr. Hall’s excellent article. To that end I had planned to include a few of Gaby’s images in this piece. Alas, my request for permission to use the images has yet to be answered, and as I would not feel comfortable doing so without the photographer’s express permission, I cannot. What I can do is urge you to visit his website, https://thirdeyeline.myportfolio.com and take in the images presented in the section called “Thule” (a translation is available and can be accessed by clicking on the translation icon in the URL at the top of the page). As Natasha explained to me, the project began when Gabriel came across some old photographs of the unspoiled island taken by another photographer, 61 years ago, in 1962. Concerned about the dramatic changes in the landscape in recent years, Gaby felt a responsibility to chronicle these changes by completing the monumental task of finding and photographing each of these vistas, exactly as they were photographed all those years ago.

Iceland is a small island, compared to, say, Australia, but it is not that small. The nation is almost 40,000 square miles, almost exactly the same size as Kentucky, or Virginia. Finding the exact location and vantage point for every photograph in the earlier collection of images, many of which could not be classified as iconic landscapes, and would likely be unrecognizable by most landscape photographers, must have been a daunting prospect. The essay and images titled “Thule” (a mysterious island at farthest northern limits of Ancient Greek exploration, and today thought to be Iceland) make a beautiful and poignant piece of work that I found fascinating and moving. I urge you to visit Gabriel’s site and, for a while, lose yourself in the powerful telling of this story. If I am able to obtain the author’s permission, I will share some of these images in future articles, but for now visit his website directly - you will be glad that you did.

My thanks to Harold Hall and Gabriel Coulet for allowing me to share their inspiring work. And to you, for tolerating my digression.

See you on Tuesday!

Allan

Resolution

Resolution…

I am not talking about the empty promises made in haste at the New Year’s Eve party only to be unceremoniously discarded like the last half carton of egg nog, the purchase of which had seemed like such a good idea the week before Christmas. The resolution that I want to talk about this week is the ability for an optical system to distinguish two points that are in close proximity as separate entities on our camera’s sensor. Assuming, of course, that the number and size of photo- sites on the sensor, or the light sensitive cells in our retinas, are capable of resolving detail to the same or a higher degree, the limiting factor becomes the numeric aperture of our objective  lens. The relationship between resolution and the numeric aperture of a system can be loosely defined by the formula:

Resolution =(approximately) the wavelength of light/ 2 x NA

This is just a helpful approximation, but good enough to make it clear that the higher the NA of our objective, the smaller the separation of points and the more resolving power in the system. We typically use objectives that prioritize full spectrum color correction and long working distances, as these characteristics of a lens give us much less color fringing while providing a lot of room  for illuminating our subject. A good example of this is the 5X Mitutoyo M Plan apochromatic objective. This lens has a numerical aperture of only 0.14 but the low resolving power (2um) is an acceptable trade-off for the huge working distance of 34mm.

Consider now the resolution of an objective like the Olympus UPLX APO, which has a numerical aperture of 0.8 (at 20X) - it is also  an apochromat, but can resolve to 0.42um - five times the resolution of the Mitutoyo (and more than twice the resolution of the Mitutoyo 20X SL WD which only has an NA of 0.28). It seems, therefore, that we are limited to using only lower NA objectives because the  corresponding tiny working distances make it all but impossible to get enough light onto our subject for photography to be possible.

At first blush, this appears to present us with a Hobson’s Choice - or no real choice at all. We can take it or leave it. We choose a high NA objective or a well lit subject, but not both. However, there is another option and that is going to be the subject of Thursday’s livestream. I am going to show you a practical and affordable alternative method for using high NA objectives  while also illuminating the subject for photography. This will not be a novel concept to everyone, but even for those of you who already know the answer to this perplexing puzzle, it may surprise you to discover just how accessible super-high-resolution photomicrography  can be, with a small investment and most of the same equipment you already have. Tune in to Macro Talk Too this Thursday at 2PM to get everything you need to dive into high-resolution photography! https://youtube.com/live/DHEicfFzmgE?feature=share

Let’s now work backwards to Tuesday’s Macro Talk, our first livestream this week, at 8PM on YouTube. We are going to have a Competition Results Special, in which I will discuss the entries to last month’s contest and announce the winners. I have decided to do this because my plans for judging this competition and recording the process for release in a video fell through at the last minute. My guest judge was called away on urgent business and was unable to complete the judging and recording. So I am going to go it alone this month and if I am doing that, I might as well do it live, as these livestreams are always a lot of fun to do. There were only about 35 entries this month (mechanisms was the theme) so I should have just enough time to go through every entry. Your link to the results livestream is right here - https://youtube.com/live/RQnBEEOL3CA?feature=share

This Saturday, at 10AM, we have another AfterStack - this is Episode 16 - and Bud Perrott will be back to lead this discussion. If you have an image you would like to have discussed be sure to send it to Bud or I this week. I believe Bud has a topic lined up and as soon as I find out what it is I will announce it in a livestream. This post-processing round table discussion is free of charge and open to anyone interested in attending. But you will need an invitation to get in - here it is -

Topic: AfterStack 16 Time: Feb 8, 2025 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=84267941870

Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

At the end of last week I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Zamir Pena, the inventor of the AK Diffuser and owner of the business by the same name. He is a delightful young man and our conversation covered quite a bit of ground. I decided to include a summary of my review of the AK diffuser with the interview, which will be released very soon. For anyone thinking about adding the AK Diffuser to their field macro kit, something I strongly suggest you do, Zamir has very kindly arranged to offer a discount for my viewers. This information will also be included in the video, but you can also take advantage of it now by going to:

www.AKdiffuser.com and entering the code “Allan Walls” before the end of February to get a 5% discount.

By the way, I was offered an affiliate relationship with the AKDiffuser company. I decided that this may be perceived to introduce a potential bias that could be influencing my review, so I politely declined the offer. I will not make a penny from any sales resulting from this or any future reviews or recommendations.

Finally, a word about our growing Macro Competition…

IMPORTANT REMINDER

The naming of your image is important. Failure to adhere to the requested naming convention complicates the judging process, can significantly add to the judge’s workload, and may result in errors. The required naming convention in this competition is as follows:

"TITLE” FIRST NAME.LAST NAME.FILETYPE

This is an example of the correct naming of entries for this competition -       

“Compound Eye” Allan.Walls.jpg       

The TITLE must match the name of the image used when entering the image and should be in quotation marks. Your first and last names should be separated by a full stop (period). We have not enforced this convention, but with new guest judges every month, we have to eliminate confusion about image titles and photographer’s name. So, starting with this month’s competition, failure to comply with the naming convention will disqualify the offending image. This rule will not affect entries submitted BEFORE 10AM on Sunday February 2, 2025

That is all I have for you this week and I look forward to seeing you at one of the week’s events!

Allan

The Robots are Coming!

Hello everyone!

It is Monday, January 27th and the beginning of another exciting week in the world of macro. Since partially resolving my computer issues, at the end of last week and with one more trip to Chicago, I have had a little time to catch up on some reading. And these days, most of my reading has been on the subject of Artificial Intelligence, particularly as it relates to macro photography and art in general. There is a lot going on and some of it is very exciting - Like China’s ChatGPT competitor - supposedly better and much cheaper than our own version. But anyway, I felt like it was time for an update and I am also going to use this opportunity to demonstrate some of the remarkable advances in ChatGPT. I have not decided on the exact programming for the two streams this week, but I will be doing a demo of the new advanced voice capabilities of ChatGPT in one or possibly both of them. This will be a lot of fun and may surprise you!

Macro talk is at 8PM on Tuesday and the link is here - https://youtube.com/live/z82lLYFOUys?feature=share

Macro Talk Too is on Thursday at 2PM and the link for that show is here - https://youtube.com/live/pRJeJNZo8Pg?feature=share

AfterStack 15 was this past Saturday but I have run into some technical problems uploading the video. I will let you know if and when I get it posted.

This coming weekend will see another Pzoom meeting - all Patreon Subscribers are invited to drop by! If you attend my Zoom gatherings but have not had a chance to introduce yourself, you are invited to do so this weekend - bring some of your images and tell us abut yourself and your macro photography (or anything else you want to tell us). This is always a lot of fun and something I really look forward to .

AK Diffuser Update

Later this week I will be meeting with Zamir Pena of AK Diffuser fame for an informal conversation to be published next week. I’m very much looking forward to this talk.

Competition

Also on the horizon is the January Competition - “Mechanisms” - deadline to enter is midnight on Friday - don’t miss the chance to enter. I am also looking for a Guest Judge - actually, I have already chosen one but am waiting for an answer. Fingers crossed!

I am changing the way I handle private lessons…

Private Lessons

I have decided it is time to update my policies regarding private teaching. I have been taking private students since this channel launched, about six years ago. I love teaching one-on-one and am very proud of the amazing work many of my students have gone on to produce. I love the work with almost the same passion that I hate the part where I have to ask for payment. As a result, I have almost never asked to be paid for my time and work. This is a terrible business practice that would surely have destroyed the channel were it not for the generosity and thoughtfulness of many of my students, who paid me anyway.

With the costs of keeping the channel operational, not to mention the rapidly rising cost of living, I have to make some changes to how I do this. The first step will be to lay out my new policy for private tutoring and explain how we are going to handle billing for my services. Private tutoring is expensive, partly because I am a decent teacher with a lot of experience, but also because my time is in very limited supply. My hourly rate for photography services in general is $200/hour, which is a little lower than that of my contemporaries. This is also my hourly rate for personal instruction. My day job (running this channel, and all that involves) takes up almost every waking hour of my week - and this is work that is not compensated. The channel has survived because of the generous support of a small group of Patreon Supporters, and the occasional donations made by other like-minded benefactors. This has never been  sufficient monthly income to support the channel but I have always been able to make up any shortfall from my own savings. But as those funds are slowly dwindling, something else is going to be needed and it is for these reasons that I have decided to create this new policy.

I am limited in the number of students I can have at any given time, and I will always give priority to my Patreon Supporters. As long as I have available teaching slots, not already taken by Patreon Supporters, I will take new students. My hourly rate is $200 for non-Patreon Supporters. My Patreon Supporters receive a 50% discount for every lesson with no limit. Additionally any Patreon Supporter will have their first monthly session discounted by the amount of their monthly donation to the channel. For example, a Patreon Supporter paying $40 per month who wishes to have two one-hour lessons each month will only be charged $60 for the first hour and $100 for the second. I think these are very attractive prices and hopefully the added discount will attract a few new Patreon subscribers to the fold.

Payment will be expected at the time of the lesson and can be made using Venmo, the CashApp, or by PayPal. I am also open to other methods of electronic payment upon request. If you are interested in private lessons but cannot manage these prices, I will continue to provide instruction to small groups of 2-3 students at the price of a single student - not ideal, but for students at about the same level, it can be a lot of fun and very effective.

Active and Retired Military

I am also starting something new - I am going to set aside two hours every month for two private tutoring sessions for active  or retired military. These sessions will be on a first come, first served basis but scheduling priority will be given to active duty and disabled veterans. I will make sure that every serviceman or servicewoman requesting a lesson will get one. If you know of anyone who might benefit from this opportunity, encourage them to contact me directly. To request a session, send me a message through the Walls-app, including your name, contact information, service branch and status, and what you are interested in learning about and I will get back to you. This invitation is not limited to the US military - if you have served or are serving anywhere, for any nation, you are eligible.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. If you are interested in private instruction, but are not a member of Patreon, please consider joining - the website is https://www.Patreon.com/allanwallsphotography.

For those who are already part of the Patreon family - your link for Saturday’s Zoom is over on the Patreon site!

Thank you and I hope to see you at one of the upcoming Livestreams, where you will finally get to meet and talk to my personal assistant!

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

The words of Puck, Oberon’s impish fairy, on realizing how screwed up everything had become in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare…

Have you ever done something so careless, with such disregard for the consequences, that you were embarrassed to tell anyone? I do it all the time, but on this particular occasion I have no choice - I have to tell you about it because it is such a good opportunity to teach something of real value. What follows is a cautionary tale that I have decided to use as the starting point for my two livestreams this week. It is about how one ill conceived move in data management can wreck a schedule, waste almost an entire work week, and cost several thousand dollars.

The story begins with a zoom call that I was having with a friend, one week ago. During the call I wanted to show a clip of video footage shot through my microscope and recorded onto my Nikon D7500. It was not the only clip on the card, but one of about 40 such segments - some of them very long. In my haste, I pulled the card (128GB) from the camera and inserted it into the card reader attached to my MacBook Pro - my main work machine and the device I use for all my livestreams, blog posts and other work related tasks. Early that day I had received a single warning message from Backblaze that my 2TB SSD was dangerously short on space and my backups may not be able to proceed until some data was moved off the drive.

I have been given these warnings before, and they are usually given long before anything bad happens - surely this was no different. So instead of attending to the problem I did the complete opposite and proceeded to transfer the clip to my computer’s hard drive without a second thought. Apparently I did so without much of a first thought either because I somehow selected ALL the clips, not just the one I wanted to show to my friend. And the computer obediently jumped into action. I thought nothing more of it until a couple of hours later, when I noticed that the computer had not finished the transfer, though it appeared to be still trying to do so. This was when I remembered the earlier warning and I stopped the transfer, or tried to. The machine was not working as expected and wouldn’t respond to any inputs. So, after  trying everything I could think of I decided to restart the machine, a maneuver that works to correct a great many problems on a Mac.

On this occasion, however, the computer would not reboot. It would start to, asking for my password and beginning the process promptly enough, but after a few seconds the screen would turn black and all signs of life would disappear. This was repeated multiple times, with no success. I still wasn’t too worried - this had happened before on older Macs, and I managed to restart the computer in Recovery Mode. This is not the same as starting in Safe Mode, a limited type of restart that allows for most of the normal activities of a working computer to proceed. In Recovery Mode there are only a very limited number of options available. One of these is called Disc Utility, a process that allows one to examine the various Discs, Volumes, and Partitions on the connected drives. On examining my 2TB SSD I discovered something that I have never seen before and until that moment did not think was even possible on a modern MacBook Pro. My SSD had only 78KB of space remaining. This blog post is larger than that. Put another way, if my computer’s hard drive had a total capacity of one Olympic swimming pool, filled to the brim, I had remaining enough space to fill the tank of my car. If the total capacity of my hard drive would fit on a football field, I had enough room left for a medium sized print of one of my photographs.

And why does any of this matter? Because in order to move or delete any data from a drive you must have enough space left on the disc to copy the material you wish to move or delete. As incomprehensible as it seems now, I had somehow managed to cram so much stuff into my computer that I couldn’t get rid of any of it. Neither could Apple.  I have a friend who lives in Europe, and knows more about Apple computers than anyone I know, and after 6 hours of typing incomprehensible commands into Terminal , only to get the same “No disc space available” response to every command, he too joined the ranks of experts who agreed there was nothing that could be done short of erasing the SSD and starting over. An 8 hour round trip to the Apple Store in Chicago confirmed my worst fears. I know what you are thinking… “But you have everything backed up, right?”. Well, yes… and no. Not everything, it turns out. Not the stuff I have been working on, videos, research, recent photographs, OBS settings, that kind of thing. Some of it is backed up, somewhere.  Oh what a mess.

If I have learned nothing else in the last six decades, I have learned this - making a stupid mistake is only indefensible when I don’t learn something from it. And I have learned a lot from this one. I am also lucky enough to have a platform from which I can share what I have learned - something that can turn this minor disaster into something positive and useful, for you and for me. Which brings me to this week’s Livestreams (if I ever figure out how to set up YouTube, OBS, Google, and half a dozen other pieces of the puzzle, needed to pull off a Livestream using a different computer). I am going to take Tuesday’s session to explain how I got into this mess and give you some concrete advice on how you can avoid the same nightmare. Most of it I once knew, but some of it has come from earnest research over the last week. I won’t spend a lot of time on what I did, but will instead try to cover all the common ways we can get into deep water with our computers, especially when it pertains to the special case of large volume image processing. I think there will be a lot of good information that should, at the very least, be a valuable reminder of what not to do. Your link to the stream is right here - https://youtube.com/live/7u4jT8-6rT0?feature=share

On Thursday we will regroup and talk about some of the most important “Best Practices” that can keep our computers functioning reliably and at peak performance for years to come. I would add that the whole time I have been researching these two discussions, I have had my $5,000 M1 paperweight sitting next to my left elbow, as a reminder. Many of you will remember how difficult and painful it was for me to scrape together the means to buy this machine in the first place - I sincerely hope that my efforts this week will keep you from ever having to go through this entirely avoidable distress. Join the conversation with this link - https://youtube.com/live/JtYwJaMOZGM?feature=share

Hopefully we can get back to some semblance of normalcy by Saturday, when I will be hosting episode 15 of AfterStack - devoted to understanding and using the much-feared Pen Tool in Photoshop.

I will talk a little about how I use this wonderful tool, but the majority of the time will be spent talking about how you use it and what tricks you might have to share with the group. Bud Perrott will be joining me for what should be an interesting and fun couple of hours. If you want to attend, it is completely free and all you need is this invitation -

Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: AfterStack Episode 15

Time: Jan 25, 2025 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=89740348691

Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

That is all I have for you this week - I hope you can make it to one or two of these events, or if not, you can always watch the videos that will be posted shortly after the  events are over. In the meantime I hope everyone has a great week ahead!

Allan

Shooting Horses

One of the Belgians, warming up

I hope you had a lovely weekend and had a little less snow, ice, and bitter cold than we did here in Middle Earth. It is supposed to warm up into the mid-teens this week - time to dig out the shorts and tee shirts!

These monsters don’t look very agile - until they do!

I spent a wonderful Saturday in Rantool, Illinois, a little town a few hour to our south, photographing a horse auction. I don’t know how I could have been alive these 45 years without knowing  that we shared the planet with a species of horse that is only slightly smaller than a brontosaurus.

Spectacular animals

They are known as Belgian horses, even though none of the ones I met spoke a word of French. But they are quite enormous - I estimated them to be roughly 30 feet tall, but I am not good at such estimates. They were quite majestic and very beautiful when standing still. When they start to walk they look a little more like a World War I tank of some kind, and make abut as much noise. The noise comes from their metal feet, which they do not seem particularly happy about. They are about as graceful when walking on concrete as a fork lift falling down an elevator shaft, but when they were moved onto the soft earth and began to trot, they appeared to float effortlessly, in defiance of gravity, around the vast indoor oval.

The farmers who were buying and selling these magnificent animals were Amish, and a hardier group of individuals than any I have previously encountered. They appeared to be immune to the bone chilling temperature and were far more warm and welcoming than the vast barn-like building in which the auction was held. The Amish, I have been informed, are not big fans of the electron, which would have been a deal breaker for me, in the unlikely event they had invited me to join their merry band. Making up for their lack of interest in technology, these happy men and women seemed to love hard work. The young men tending to the horses never paused in their laboring, and as you will see from any of these images, the result of their effort was an arena packed to the rafters with equine excellence.

And what does any of this have to do with the activities scheduled for this week, you may ask? Nothing at all really, but I wanted you to know why there were several photographs of horses scattered throughout a blog post on a macro photography website. And now you know!

Hats off to these hardworking cowboys

We kick off this week with something unusual. On Tuesday’s Macro Talk I am going to address a seldom discussed subject that I think may be useful to the newer members of the audience.

It is titled “Timing” (and can be found here - https://youtube.com/live/xqK_QXs-Bzs?feature=share) but it is probably not what you are thinking. I will attempt to answer questions like, when “should I buy a focus rail?”, “When do I go from extension tubes to a microscope objective?”, “How will I know that it is time I thought about getting a lesson or two?”, and so on. I will talk about most of the big decisions we make during our macro experience and give you my thoughts on when the time is right to take the plunge. It should be fun as this is something I have been meaning to talk about for some time.

So graceful!

On Thursday, at 2PM, we have another MacroTalkToo coming up and I plan to use this time to get caught up on the backlog of questions that have been accumulating in my various messaging apps.

There will be plenty of time to any questions from the audience, but I think we can cover a lot of interesting material in one hour. Please plan on joining us this Thursday - the link is here - https://youtube.com/live/xS5l0SKMQrY?feature=share

Saturday is another Pzoom - a two-hour face to face conversation with my Patreon supporters. I do this every other Saturday and they are usually a lot of fun.

A great opportunity to  ask questions, show off cool pictures or new gear, and get to know one another. I love these Pzoom meetings and I always get something out of the gatherings. The invite is over on the Patreon page - https://www.patreon.com/allanwallsphotography.

Immediately following the Pzoom meeting is Tangent - a 3D modeling and printing discussion forum that is led by Larry Strunk and that is open to anyone who would like to attend.

It also is a lot of fun and a great way to spend a snowy Saturday afternoon. Here is the invitation - I hope you will come by and join in the festivities!

Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Tangent

Time: Jan 18, 2025 12:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=83452232753

Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

And talking about festive events, I plan to release the next installment of AfterStack, with Bud Perrott.

It was recorded while I was away shooting horses and I have not had a chance to watch it yet, but I am sure it will be excellent! Here is a link to the recording - https://youtu.be/eNzNWazeFcI

There are quite a few projects in the works and some waiting to begin, but you can expect to see several new videos in the coming weeks - more on them later.

I would like to wrap things up this week with a non-horse image. This is a piece of art that may be familiar to many of you, though on closer inspection you may see some subtle differences between this version and the original, a painting by Salvador Dali titled “Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man”.

A poster of this amazing painting was permanently installed over my bed as a young man. It was the first thing I saw every morning and the last at the end of every day. My dear friend and source of inspiration, Patrick Stahel, took time out of his hectic Swiss schedule to add an extra figure to this painting, which he then framed and sent to me for a Christmas gift. In the package was a wonderful letter that was far too flattering to share, and a small mountain of Swiss chocolate, too delicious to share. A photograph of the painting is presented above. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thank you Patrick!

And that, my friends, is it for another week! I hope to see you at an event or two. Stay warm - not much longer and Spring will be here!

Allan

New Year's Eve Eve

… and where did this year go?! It is hard to believe another 100 livestreams have been added to the catalog, along with a dozen contests, twenty four Pzooms, as many AfterStacks and Tangents, and over 100 blog and Patreon posts. Yet it all seems to have happened in the blink of an eye. 2024 also saw our first Macro Picnic - a big success - and a move from the Deep South to the Deep Freeze. I am not going to linger on 2024 in this post as I have a separate piece for that purpose later in the week. For now, let me tell you what remains for 2024 and how we will be kicking off 2025.

Tomorrow is our final Macro Talk of 2024 and in it we will be looking at how color is managed while going from your editing software to your printer - one of the more complicated and confusing  subjects in the color series. This is scheduled for the usual time of 8PM, on Tuesday 12/31/24. The link is here - https://youtube.com/live/VLat3tU7NKc?feature=share

Our first Livestream of 2025 is on Thursday at 2PM and it will be the last discussion in the series on color. In this last chapter I will be talking about a few more advanced concepts in color management for macro photographers. The stream can be found by following this link - https://youtube.com/live/Oo3hZiEU3ek?feature=share

Also this week is the first Pzoom meeting of 2025, Saturday from 10AM until noon. The invitation is posted over the Patreon page.

The big event this week is the November & December Wild Card Competition - the deadline for which is tomorrow at midnight. If you have not posted your images, please do so now - I have fixed the problem with the quota, so you should have no problem loading your images. I will be getting together later in the week to go over all the entries and start the judging process with none other than Lester Lefkowitz! I am really looking forward to this opportunity to work with Lester and I can guarantee a lively and informative results video, which I hope to get out by the end of the weekend. I have not looked at the entries yet but I am bracing myself for an epic challenge this month.

The title for the January contest is “Macro Machinery”, and the rules are as follows:

1) Two entries per person for anyone who has not previously won the competition, one entry only for former winners.

2) All entries must be shot at 2:1 or higher magnification

3) The subject must have at least two moving parts but can be either automatic or manually operated. If you only include a part of the “machine” in your photograph, it should be a part that showcases the machinery (for example, if you photograph a watch it should show the movement, not the strap”

4) Every entry needs your name and a title

Please do not submit your January entry any earlier than midnight tomorrow

And finally, I would like to ask for your feedback. As I start to plan for the coming year I would like to get your input. What would you like to see more of? Any ideas for new features? Is the current schedule working for you? Now is your chance to tell me how I can improve your macro photography channel! Please put your comments, complaints, requests and suggestions in the comments for this post and I will read every one of them.

Thank you for all your support during 2024 and I wish each and every one of you a safe, happy, and perfectly focused 2025!

More Color

With a little over a week left before the Christmas holiday is upon us, I find I have more to do than time to do it in. This is typically the season during which my inability to say “No, thank you” to demands on my time causes me more frustration than at other, less festive times of the year. Knowing this, it should have had no trouble saying “No, thank you” to the friend who called me at 8PM on Sunday and asked if I could help him out of a jam by organizing and cooking for a dinner party that had been scheduled for the next day, today, in other words. Monday is my busiest day of the week, the day I plan and write my livestream content, schedule my events, and get the week’s blog post published. I normally start at around 6AM and am done about 12 hours later. But, of course, I said I would be happy to help out - which I am, as my friend’s last minute emergency is a legitimate one, and I am a competent cook. The result is that this will be a brief post, with my apologies.

Last Saturday we enjoyed a lively discussion on the subject of Blend Modes in episode 12 of AfterStack. The conversation was led by Bud Perrott and you can find the recording on YouTube by following this link - https://youtu.be/BlULo1QMAW8

We kick things off this week with Macro Track on Tuesday at 8PM, with Chapter 3 of our 6 part discussion of Color in Macro Photography. In this episode we will look at how to use color in designing an image - in other words, we will consider how color in integrated into both composition and aesthetics. The question we will asking is how can color be understood and manipulated in order to create visually engaging images. To this end we will consider the psychology of color - how humans respond to certain colors. We will look into the practical applications of color theory - how to create balance and harmony in an image. Finally we will consider some practical applications of color theory - how to avoid color clashes, using depth of field in conjunction with color, and selecting the best backgrounds for an image. This is your link to Tuesday’s stream - https://youtube.com/live/yhPRixsIhSs?feature=share

On Thursday’s Macro Talk Too we will delve into the color workflow, or how we can make the most of color by accurate calibration and careful post-processing. We will talk about why calibration matters and the various tools we have for screen calibration. We will cover color profiles and color spaces - specifically, when and how to use them. Then we will get into post-processing and look at white balance and tone, selective enhancement with HSL and masking, and how to manage color noise while maintaining color accuracy and image fidelity at high magnifications. Your link to this stream is here - https://youtube.com/live/XR6ePF-Arok?feature=share

On Saturday, December 21st at 10AM our Pzoom Christmas Extravaganza will kick off with our first annual eggnog drinking competition followed by a presentation on “Close-up Photography of Flaming Christmas Puddings and Amateur Skin Grafting Tips for Eyebrow Burns”. Definitely not a Pzoom you will want to miss! The invitation is posted on the Patreon home page.

Immediately following Saturday’s Pzoom, at 12:30 to be precise, we will have our final Tangent 3D modeling session of 2024. I think Larry is going to be talking about the latest and greatest releases from the big 3D printer manufacturers, among other things - check the Tangent Channel over on my Discord Server for details. The invitation to this weeks Tangent is here - Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: The Tangent - with Larry and Allan

Time: Dec 21, 2024 12:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=84337476098

Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

As I have mentioned in the last few posts, I will be away from the studio next week and have been forced to cancel both of usual livestreams, So there will be no Macro Talk on Christmas Eve and no Macro Talk Too on Boxing Day. I will not have access to the internet on either day. I will try to get a post out on Monday, and if there are any changes to the holiday schedule, that is where you will find them.

There will be an AfterStack on Saturday December 28th at 10AM - It will be my turn to lead the discussion and I will be talking abut a couple of the commonly used color tools in Photoshop. The invitation is posted here, in case I do not get a chance to post it next week. Allan Walls is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: AfterStack #13 - Color Tools

Time: Dec 28, 2024 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6916802815?pwd=TS9tZi9ZL1NXeVUvOUF4eTg5YjdlZz09&omn=86402510371

Meeting ID: 691 680 2815

Passcode: 678122

A final word about the competition - some people have been encountering difficulty posting their images for the November/December Wild Card Competition and it appears to be related to my website being over-quota from all the images submitted during the last few months. I am working to fix this today, so if you have had a problem uploading your images, please try again in a day or two, and check back before the end of the month to make sure your entries have been properly posted. I apologize for any inconvenience.

A busy week ahead! I hope to see you tomorrow!

Allan

Lester Returns and the 2024 Gift Guide

Eye of a mosquito - a reminder of warmer times

Well it is definitely that time of year again. I woke up this morning to find the ground covered in a mysterious white substance, very cold to the touch (I have been told), and not uncommon enough in this part of Middle Earth. So, one of the ways the people of Illinois survive this insult to the senses is by planning for the coming winter holiday season. In the south, our planning was usually put off until Christmas Eve, or earlier if a cold snap forced the temperatures down into the low 60s, reminding us of the coming festivities. But here we are, covered in deadly snow and still weeks to go before families once again gather at the dining table to scream at each other. With the excitement and anticipation at a fever pitch in all the local drugstores, where Christmas music started just before Easter, I feel like I would be remiss were I not to do my holiday macro gift guide livestreams early this year.

Winter

In trying to think up a way to make the guides a little more fun this year I have decided to split them into two distinctly different offerings. On Tuesday, in Macro Talk, I will be focusing on a comprehensive list of all the really practical and useful things that every macro photographer could use and should have in their kit bag or studio. It makes for a long and interesting list of really cool ideas. I will go through the list and explain why I think these are items that should be on your list for 2024. Spoiler alert - I have included links to every one of these items below - if you don’t want to know what I am going to be suggesting, don’t read the rest of this post! The link to the stream is here - https://youtube.com/live/_3iZvU8qO8k?feature=share

Thursday’s list is a completely different matter - it is a list of all the stuff we really want to get for Christmas, but know there is no real chance that we will. But it will still be fun to talk about the gift guide for the macro photographer who already has everything they could ever need. Think of it as the ultimate macro wish list for 2024. Here is a link to the Livestream, Macro Talk Too - https://youtube.com/live/IXj8a-lZWtE?feature=share

Tomorrow I will also be releasing the second half of the Lester Lefkowitz interview, in which Lester goes over the high points of the second volume of his “Guide to Close-up and Macro Photography”. Here is the link to the video, which will not be posted until 10AM on Tuesday 12/3/24. https://youtu.be/UGfMHtmxyuU

To order a copy of Lester’s books, go to Lester’s website, https://www.macrophotographer.net, and follow the instructions. The video is a long one but it is worth watching as it is packed full of fun and interesting information and Lester is in excellent form - don’t miss it!

Also released today was episode 11 of the AfterStack series in which we talked all abut the custom brush tool in Photoshop - loads of good information in this one! The video link is - https://youtu.be/gj6Mb0HMZkA?si=oMIkNFCQRTD0H3SK

This is a Pzoom weekend so on Saturday I will be hosting a discussion for my Patreon supporters - I am still working on the agenda, but it promises to be another entertaining and educational macro photography feast. Your invitation to this event is posted on the Allan Walls Photography Patreon page. I will see at 10AM this Saturday. There is no Tangent this week.

I was disappointed to miss my livestream on Thursday, but it was for a good reason - I was in Indianapolis for Thanksgiving with my eldest daughter, Lauren, and I had a lovely time with her. Unfortunately, it is starting to look like the Christmas week is also going to see a schedule disruption as I will be in rural Tennessee for that holiday. I just learned that internet is provided by some kind of satellite link, which probably means a download speed of <1.0MBPD (mega bites per day) and an upload speed considerably slower. That would be no fun for you or me, so unless I can find a way around it, I may have to take that week off completely. I will let you know if I come up with a better plan.

I am still trying to get the competition plan tied up for this month - I want to find a way to  split the prizes between experienced photographers and relative newcomers The problem is that all the handicap[ping ides that I have had would require that I know who has placed in the top ten in previous competitions, but that would take me going back through every competition video I have done in the last 3 or 4 years, and I don’t know when I will be able to do that but I think I will have no other choice. The way things stand now, there are going to be two groups - Group I - those who have ever made  it to one of the  the top three places at least once and everyone who has placed in the final 10 two or more times , and 2)  everyone else.

As promised here is a list of every prize that has been donated for this giant 2-month competition, along with the names of the donors, so far - I will contuse to accept donations right up to the last week of December - so if you have a new or gently used piece of kit that you no longer need, and think would make an attractive prize, please let me know right away. You can also go ahead and send the prize to my studio as soon as you can, so that I can get your name on the list of donors without delay. My address is:

  Allan Walls Photography

2417 West Wagner Lane

  Peoria, Illinois 61615

Here are the prizes and donors we currently have:

1) Volume I and II of Lester Lefkowitz’s excellent book “Guide to Closeup and Macro Photography:”, signed by the author - donor - Lester Lefkowitz

2) Volume I of Lester Lefkowitz’s excellent book “Guide to Closeup and Macro Photography:”, signed by the author - donor - Lester Lefkowitz

3) Volume II of Lester Lefkowitz’s excellent book “Guide to Closeup and Macro Photography:”, signed by the author - donor - Lester Lefkowitz

4) Datacolor’s Spider X Studio color calibration suite - donor - anonymous

5) 360° Flex Tilt & Pan Head - Z&V Mount Designed with Alyn Wallace, from Move Shoot Move - donor - Paul Maschak

6) Two, 5-day macro photography getaways to the Buffalo National River area of Arkansas with full accommodations - donor - Mr and Mrs. George Simpkins

7) A 3-hour private macro photography lesson package - with me - you set the agenda

8) A Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro lens (F-mount) - donor - Alan Recktenwald

I think there will be a couple of additional prizes - stay tuned!

*********************************

WARNING - do not read any further unless you want to see the entire holiday gift guide! Listed below are links to every item discussed in the gift guide livestreams scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday of this week. Some of these links, though not all, are affiliate links, which means I may make a small fee when you complete a purchase using one of these links. Now you know!

These are not  strictly in the order presented in the livestreams - but close. They should all be in here though.

1) the Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2:1 Macro lens - the one that started it all! https://amzn.to/41eZuo5

2) Laowa 90mm f/2.8 2:1 Macro Lens - the one that I fell for this year. https://amzn.to/3ZjfD9h

3) The wonderful Nikon Z-8 - if you have to ask…   https://amzn.to/3CXRYnC

4) Raynox DCR 250 - you already have the DCR 150 - isn’t it time you tried short focus with this bargain beauty? https://bhpho.to/3VjmiPV

5) Godox MF12 macro flashes - nothing more to be said - https://bhpho.to/3OCkLk7   or.  https://bhpho.to/3OCkLk7

6) Aputure Amaran AL-M9 mini LED - tiny and powerful - a great little light! - $72 - https://amzn.to/4gaE5Aw

7) SmallRig RM01 mini lighting kit - you need to check this one out - very handy   https://bhpho.to/3OCkLk7

8) Manfrotto BeFree tripod - light and compact -  https://amzn.to/49l4xoR

9) Platypod Extreme - I want one of these! - https://bhpho.to/4fU0Zwx

10) Novoflex Magic Ball- the best of the best - https://bhpho.to/4ff72Lw

11) K&F Concept - variable ND filter - a very useful tool - https://amzn.to/4gjboSl

12) Lowepro Slingshot Edge 250AW - a great sling bag when you don’t need the whole backpack - https://amzn.to/3VmlcCN

13) Think Tank Pixel Pocket Rocket - the best memory card holder -  https://amzn.to/3ZAeziM

14) An awesome bubble level for your macro rig - https://amzn.to/3ZkPhUm

15) Manfrotto Still Life Table - a clever way to shoot indoors - https://amzn.to/4eZSRZW

16) WeMacro Rail - the best bargain in macro-land - Still only $300 - https://www.wemacro.com/?product=wemacro-rail

17) Mitutoyo M-Plan infinity corrected mic cryoscope objectives - the best high end optics for photography - https://www.edmundoptics.com/p/5x-mitutoyo-plan-apo-infinity-corrected-long-wd-objective/6621/?srsltid=AfmBOorjXv4tSqGxZjXGmsWWMkaczq6hh78eVCi1yHeHMMs4cRU8duw_

18) Zerene Stacker - the best Focus Stacking program on the planet - https://www.zerenesystems.com/cms/stacker

19) Godox SL60W continuous light - a powerful addition to the studio - https://amzn.to/49gEejG

20) Swift SW380T Microscope - A reliable entry level scope for photographers - https://amzn.to/4iiFAP5

21) Hoya polarizing filters - a must for birefringent crystal photography - https://amzn.to/3ZxqwG4

22) B&W close up filter set - a great option for macro beginners - https://bhpho.to/3Zw3jUG

23) Fotodiox Reversing Adapter - you don’t have one?!?!    https://amzn.to/3OWGPpX

24) Lensbaby OpticSwap macro kit - https://amzn.to/3COWOTV

25) Prusa mark 4S ($729)   - https://www.prusa3d.com/product/original-prusa-mk4s-3d-printer-kit/.    or Prusa core one kit ($949)    https://www.prusa3d.com/product/prusa-core-one-kit/

26) Datacolor SpyderX2 - my calibrator - https://bhpho.to/3B7TEua

27) Lensalign Focus Calibration System - https://amzn.to/3VmrylD

28) Pelican 1510 - indestructible - https://amzn.to/3CW2WKg

28) Dehumidifiers - mine are still going after 10 years from Wisesorb - https://amzn.to/3B9KOMm

29) Smartphone microscope mount from Tridaptor ($47) - https://amzn.to/3OIFoLj

30) Insect Display case - https://amzn.to/4fVk6pN

31) Micropipette - awesome buy - https://amzn.to/4f6QULC

32) Fog Machine - handheld from Ulanzi - https://amzn.to/419xxhw

33) Water Drop Kit - Miops splash - https://amzn.to/3ZxKIY9

34) Books - separate video topic - macro texts, field guides, insect books, general photography

35) Memberships - entomologic society, local or online photography club, etc.

36) Courses and workshops - Bugshot, Paul Williams, Stewart Wood, Macro workshop in Costa Rica (Macro Wild Photo).

37) Trips galore - links in livestream

Camera Bag Essentials

1) a really good flashlight - Surefire EDC-2 - Dual Fuel - $200 - https://amzn.to/3VlgEwJ

2) the best multitool -  Leatherman ARC $229 - https://amzn.to/4gjj4nz

3) Water holder - Lowepro $37 - https://amzn.to/3OAbVmL

4) Power bank - Anker 27,650mAhr - $129 - https://amzn.to/4ggjo6l

5) Batteries - the best 18650s you can buy - Molicel P28B - https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/molicel-p28b-18650-2800mah-40a-battery

6) UV light - fox fury Rook NDT UV - https://bhpho.to/3OBLNbh

7) Koala microfiber cloths - https://amzn.to/3OAwTSz

8) Sophia Rose poncho - the best - https://amzn.to/4eYaqJV

9) Lens pen - from LensPen - https://amzn.to/3Vk4rbu

10) - Kiwiphoto 18650 box - https://amzn.to/41l5D2h

11) Fenix HM 65R headlamp - https://amzn.to/3BlXMql

There may be more, but we shall have to wait for tomorrow’s stream to see - this has been a long 14 hours of work and I am going cross-eyed. Hope to see you tomorrow evening!

Allan