Reflected Mesh
You've seen this watchband before, as I had previously photographed it for our "Curves" theme on November 14, 2022 (and I also photographed other parts of this Casio watch, one for 2022's "Redux" and December 2023's "Bokeh" theme).
The entire casing and the strap are "ion plated", as Casio calls it, and the watch shimmers in the nicest iridescent rainbow colours, with gold as a base colour (pretty posh, I must admit). Its Milanese strap also has an unusual structure that looks a little different from a regular Milanese strap, as it almost resembles woven or knitted fabric.
As I had already photographed the strap as a rainbow wave for "Curves", I had to think of something different for our "Mesh" theme. So I rolled the strap up and placed one end of the strap above the other, with the clock face down. I noticed that the mesh was reflected in the strap's polished clasp, and this gave me my image idea: lots of bokeh from the strap, but a small, reflected part of the mesh in focus because that's our theme after all. And: I also wanted to get the "Stainless Steel" lettering in focus.
My first attempts yesterday, taken with the Laowa 2x Ultra Macro lens, didn't quite yield the desired result. At F2.8, I got the bokeh, but in the clasp, either the lettering was in focus or the mesh's reflection. And at a higher aperture value, I might have gotten both in focus, but including the strap.
So today, for a final attempt, I switched lenses and did some stacking. I am happy to say that I also learned something new about the focus differential settings of the in-camera stacking function. The focus differential ranges from 1 to 10, and it determines the difference in focus position between shots. "5" is the sweet spot, as it yields good results for most scenes, but here, it already resulted in a too wide focus range. So I checked out "1", a setting I have never used before, and it worked: sharp lettering, sharp mesh reflection, and lots of strap bokeh :)
HMM, Everyone!
Reflected Mesh
You've seen this watchband before, as I had previously photographed it for our "Curves" theme on November 14, 2022 (and I also photographed other parts of this Casio watch, one for 2022's "Redux" and December 2023's "Bokeh" theme).
The entire casing and the strap are "ion plated", as Casio calls it, and the watch shimmers in the nicest iridescent rainbow colours, with gold as a base colour (pretty posh, I must admit). Its Milanese strap also has an unusual structure that looks a little different from a regular Milanese strap, as it almost resembles woven or knitted fabric.
As I had already photographed the strap as a rainbow wave for "Curves", I had to think of something different for our "Mesh" theme. So I rolled the strap up and placed one end of the strap above the other, with the clock face down. I noticed that the mesh was reflected in the strap's polished clasp, and this gave me my image idea: lots of bokeh from the strap, but a small, reflected part of the mesh in focus because that's our theme after all. And: I also wanted to get the "Stainless Steel" lettering in focus.
My first attempts yesterday, taken with the Laowa 2x Ultra Macro lens, didn't quite yield the desired result. At F2.8, I got the bokeh, but in the clasp, either the lettering was in focus or the mesh's reflection. And at a higher aperture value, I might have gotten both in focus, but including the strap.
So today, for a final attempt, I switched lenses and did some stacking. I am happy to say that I also learned something new about the focus differential settings of the in-camera stacking function. The focus differential ranges from 1 to 10, and it determines the difference in focus position between shots. "5" is the sweet spot, as it yields good results for most scenes, but here, it already resulted in a too wide focus range. So I checked out "1", a setting I have never used before, and it worked: sharp lettering, sharp mesh reflection, and lots of strap bokeh :)
HMM, Everyone!