So What The Fuzz - a photo on Flickriver

So What The Fuzz

            Titel borrowed from Stevie Wonder's song "So What The Fuss" from his last official studio album "A Time 2 Love" from 2005. Prince played guitar on this funky song.

 #MacroMondays
 #String

An "up-close and personal" view into a cut-open, orange-patterned paracord rope. The moment you cut paracord, both the inner strings (seven single strings that are themselves made of numerous even thinner strings) and the braided sheath, as well made of thin strings (that are also made of even thinner...? It's dizzying) start to fringe badly so you better have a (stick) lighter at hand. But here, this was the effect I wanted to have. 

I have made a few (very basic and simple) paracord camera wrist straps with one of the easiest weaves, the cobra weave (everything else is beyond my braiding skills). The next project was supposed to be a camera shoulder strap. Still, of course, I wanted it to look fancy and so I wanted to combine two differently coloured/patterned paracord ropes – and ended up with a hopelessly tangled mess that also "ended" the shoulder strap project. As time (a long time) passed, I came to prefer wrist straps over shoulder straps because if you wear your camera gear as I used to (photo bag cross-body to the right, camera on strap cross-body to the left) it quickly becomes uncomfortable, especially around the neck/throat area. Problem solved (and enough material left for more paracord wrist straps) :)

The image didn't work as long as I used a black background and tried to incorporate more than a very small part of the (backlit) paracord because the rope, and even more so the inner strings are way too thin to effectively backlight them with a regular flashlight, and that flashlight already is a small one with a diameter of only 1,5 cm/0,59 inches. I almost wanted to quit but then thought "blue". So the blue glitter foam sheet, dull side up, came to the rescue. The tricky part was to place the paracord rope so I could photograph it face-to-face. Placing the piece on an upside-down, tiny glass jar gave me the right height but produced unwanted, distracting reflections in the glass from the single light source (natural light photo lamp from above). So in the end, I used my camera's (empty) spare battery case which has a small opening on top. I fixated the rope with a clamp, stuck it into the battery case, and bent it so the lens would "look" right into the paracord section.

The image is made of 50 focus bracketing images combined in Helicon Focus, Method C, S3 (and still, not everything is in focus due to the slightly pulled-out inner strings and the depth of the view). The paracord section is 4 mm/0.15 inches in diameter.

I'm very busy today and will properly catch up with you tonight.

HMM, Everyone!

Taken on: December 1, 2024

Tags:

Macro Mondays

String

extreme macro

2.5x

Paracord

strings

nylon

fuzzy

parachute cord

550 cord

nylon kernmantle rope

up-close and personal

face-to-face

colourful

glow

white

orange

blue

improvised

focus bracketing

Seil

Fallschirmseil

So What The Fuss

Stevie Wonder

Prince

Olympus

OM-D E-M1 Mark III

M.Zuiko Digital ED 30mm 1:3.5 Macro

DXO PhotoLab 8

Helicon Focus

ThroughHerLens « less

Sets appears in: • Extreme Macro • Aliens in Outer Space more » • Macro Mondays « less

Groups appears in: • MACRO MONDAYS • ! 90+ Faves (P1,A+F3) more » • ★ Macro - Up Close and Personal ★ • Makro-Welten - Worlds of Macro • Olympus M.Zuiko ED 30mm f3.5 Macro • The New Focus 1a • !Flickr Macro « less

Camera: Olympus E-M1MarkIII, f/3.5, 1/125 sec, 30mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Olympus E-M1MarkIII
Lens:	OLYMPUS M.30mm F3.5 Macro
Aperture:	f/3.5
Exposure Time:	0.008 sec (1/125)
Focal Length:	30mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	+1 EV
Flash:	On, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Spot
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 14.0.1 (Windows)
Show full info

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