Focus Stack for Ultimate Sharpness | Dolphin Photography from the Land | Shooting 50 Year Old Film. 

I discovered this channel a couple of months ago and have been busy watching the whole series to date. I have learned SO much! Thank you. The TV programme style format is brilliant and holds the interest throughout. The presenters are knowledgeable and are naturals in front of the camera; the locations in beautiful Skye and beyond are spectacular. Thanks, once again.

I loved the piece on the 50 year old sheets of film. It brought to mind a story of my own which I will try to keep brief. My father served in the far east (Singapore) at the end of the WW2. He bought a box brownie at the world trade fair in that country in 1947 (which accepted the long discontinued 620 film). He photographed us as kids on our holidays in the 60s on that camera but consigned it to the mantelpiece as an artifact as time and technology moved on. When he passed away at the end of 2018, I inherited the camera. When we came to scatter his ashes, I was determined to record the event with the family and his friends on that very camera by adapting MF black and white 120 film by trimming the plastic reel ends. I then developed the negs myself and printed it using my MF enlarger previously donated to a local darkroom. The resulting prints were deliberately kept at square enprint size (slightly larger than contact size) as they would have been had you got your prints back from the chemist back in the day. I thought it was in keeping with the whole exercise in his honour. Like, Marcus, I had to take an educated guess at exposure (more in terms of development) but they came out fine, due to the forgiving latitude of black and white neg film. Sorry to ramble for so long! Great show as always, team!

Was browsing through the frontpage of RU-vid to notice that the guy in the thumbnail was James. I got a little upset thinking someone stole his content haha. What a surprise seeing him through the video. One of my all time favorite landscape photographer. Its nice to see him getting the recognition he deserves.

Having had some of the greatest "knob" moments ever, it's good to see that even the best photographers out there have had their share too. :)

Post-it note aside, I really enjoyed that film photography feature. Dont beat yourself up, it was terrific! Film photography is not something I would like to invest in, but its still fascinating to watch others do it and for that, I thank you.

You can narrow in on your ASA and development time pretty quickly by sacrificing one sheet. As you expose, remove the dark slide in increments; in a single exposure you'll get vertical strips over your exposure range. Then in the darkroom, cut the film into horizontal strips. Pull them one at a time from the developer at timed intervals. Then when you reassemble you can see each combination of exposure and development time in a matrix.

Another superb show. Very clear stacking advice, honesty from Marcus and I thought Harry asked all the right questions

Watch the above episode and then went on to watch the full interview Charlie Phillips about his amazing dolphin picture taking. At first I thought that a 40 minute interview would be too long and boring, but how wrong could I be. An amazing person with a totally fascinating 'story' to tell. I was totally spellbound by this man's love and devotion for the dolphins and how he has come very close and personal with these creature. Although I live down under, hopefully next year I will try to visit this wonderful location and meet up with Charlie. This has to be one of the best interviews that I have watch and I would urge everyone to watch this interview.

Charlie, what an inspiration you are 👏

What's tricky on focus stacking a waterfall is that the water creates wind a lot of times if it's large enough. I was taking pictures last fall of covered bridge across a lake. The wind was blowing the trees and putting ripples on the water. I wanted the water to be smooth. I shot the trees at a fast shutter speed to freeze them and then put an ND filter on to use a slow shutter speed for the water on the lake. It was very easy to blend using a brush in Photoshop because I only had to go over the water. You can sometimes use this technique with waterfalls if it's a little windy. I had to use ISO 200p but my z6 II handles higher ISO like that very well. You don't always have to be at ISO 100.

Another get show. Charlie is inspiring, a one armed photographer Overcoming a disability for the love of the art. That is just as amazing as his photography.

Watching the piece on Dolphin Photography I am hard pressed to think of ever seeing a better segment on this channel.

using it for a few years and now I want to upgrade and I'm happy I did that.

Give Charly my regards - he‘s a great man. Wish I could meet him and his dolphins one day

Love the bloopers at the end of the video 😍

😀luv the knob error of a sticky note! loved the mystery photo process

fantastic as always.. enjoy your holidays guys

Loved the shooting of 50 year old film. Have shot with even older 4x5” film in 16 piece packages. Seeing forward to more on cyanotype as I would like to use that method for some of my own images, though a bit smaller images. Great work also with the focus stacking feature.

Thanks to all for another fantastic episode. They just keep getting better and better! Enjoy the summer break, it is wet and cold down here in Australia.

Excellent, you people make it so interesting that time flies.

Nearest I could find relating to the 50 yr old film stock in a book I have was for Eastman Fine Grain Release Positive 5302 film.. as opposed to type 7302. The dev info for that film is use D-163 dev for 1.5 > 2mins at 20c with continuous agitation.. seems like a tray development process routine. Both films types are obviously darkroom film for making positive film duplicates from negatives either by projection or by contact.

Photographing or even just waiting for dolphins at Chanonry Point is a great experience. We are from Australia and spent time on the Black Isle, a beautiful location.

Hi love all the videos telecasted so far. A must watch channel for photographers with immense details required. Can you please create a video on Focal Length blending with shooting and post processing if possible.

The guidance from James on focus staking with movement is invaluable. I had given up f/s with sea scapes but the advice re water that moves in a consistent manner like waterfalls has given me renewed encouragement. That said, if there is further tips re f/s and post production work for seascapes that would be an ideal future blog.

Enjoyed this weeks program as usual, two stand out items, focus stacking and dolphin watching. Thank you all for putting this together.😀👍

Great show as always! Enjoy your holiday!

Another great episode. And I really appreciate your commitment to analogue as well as digital photography.

great informative and entertaining video - as usual

Perfectly explained! Thanks James!

great as usual!

Dolphins, stacking and old film - all interesting articles. Keep up the good work!

Great show this month as always thanks to Charlie and the Photography on Line team.

Nice clear instructions from James 👏

Excellent thanks!

Inspirational - as usual!! I really liked the focus stacking part as well… something I’ve been wanting to try out. Thanks.

Still my favorite

Just watched this latest from you guys - interesting and informative content as always. Thank you all for your input, always nice to see excellent photographers and their techniques. Enjoy your holidays.

I understand the concept of focus stacking. I have watched tutorials on focus stacking. I have cameras and computers that are capable of focus stacking. I am convinced that focus stacking is urban legend! It cannot actually be done.

Great tutorial crammed full of info once again I've never focus stacked and found this very interesting time to put it to practice 👍

Enjoy your Summer break guys.. Truly Well Deserved ❤️❤️🙏

Great episode tonight guys, as per normal! Loved the dolphin clip and just shows film can still be used even if it’s the same age as Marcus ! I’ve just ordered some sticky notes for him for Xmas!! 😄

Great shiow

Have a great holyday. I know i will… on Skye!

Loved the dolphin feature. I am fortunate to live in a part of Southern California that has the largest number of wild dolphins per square mile in the world. Common dolphins alone are estimated at 450,000 and it is common to see "stampedes'' of hundreds and even thousands of dolphins just offshore. Dana Point here has just been named the first Whale Heritage Site in the U.S. Have to try some of the tips from the show next outing.

Hello from New York!

Marcus doesn't need to focus stack. He did a very involved tutorial featuring infinity focus which supposedly negates the need for focus stacking.I never did make it work.

Came here as I thought, how do you focus stack dolphins 🤔😊

Thank you for another really excellent and informative video. Please would you do a feature on planning and completing long term projects? As an amateur I have tried a few which all started well but did not come to a proper conclusion. I would really appreciate your expertise and advise on this, thank you.

I loved the Dolphin story, great images and goes to show you how passion and perseverance will produce outstanding images. My only criticism was that there was no technical information. I was hoping that he was going to explain how he created some of those images. I also found the 50 film story fascinating. I am now a professional photographer but started my career in photography as a printer and then progressed to be a colour transparency film processor for the largest magazine house in Australia. I was intrigued to see the close up of the seal on the 10x8 film box said positive film. Got me thinking, was this mis-labeled or was 10x8, black and white negative film called positive film as opposed to colour negative or colour transparency.

I think the camera hanging and swinging from that guys tripod is a bad habit. One of these days he's going to get a very soft picture from camera shake. I've heard the hosts of the show talk about keeping a tripod steady and hanging/swinging things is definitely a no no.

Interesting bit on the 50 year old film Marcus. Did you have any issues with base fog on the negs?

Great show. I would be interested to know the impact in camera focus stacking has on a charged battery. It has been my experience that a lot of in camera processing can kill a battery in minutes.

With the dolphins jumping in and out of the water, what would be easier when focusing. Back-button focusing or half pressing the shutter button?

Having watched all of the editions of your excellent Photography online, I have noticed that more recently, you now have the subtitles showing at the bottom of the screen. I have also noticed that when viewing a filmed piece some wording added to the filmed section also appears at the bottom of the screen. Unfortunately, the subtitles mask the wording in the film. This may include settings and/or advice. Is there a way of moving the subtitles or in fact turn it off? Excellent programme, never miss it.

Do you have to figure reciprocity on 35 mm film? How do you know what the reciprocity would be in any given circumstance? Great show as always. I am wondering if we can have more gate opening and water boiling in the future though. Seems to be lacking in this channel. Hahahaha. That was my favorite episode by the way.

Question for the PO Team; have you stopped doing the pdf episode index as it doesn't seem to have been in the Show More bit for a few shows?

fraction of plane of focus depends on lens focal length

Unfortunately there are only a very few select subject types that make focus stacking viable for macro shots. Most insects and flowers are not suitable for focus stacking - as soon as one part of the subject is so far in front of a more distant part of the same subject you want to have in focus then the only thing that can save the shot is to be inventing part of the subject in the more distant area So in macro photography I wouldn't bother unless I have a serious problem wasting hours on end on a single shot. Once you start to notice what happens in focus stacking on such subjects you can never again unsee the effect and start to resent the effect. Much like sky replacement focus stacking in macro photography is a fad that can't end too soon...

those poor dolphins being shot by all those people LOL :)

where are the dolphins?

Why can’t you just give us the answers now in the beginning

knob..😅

This topic has been covered hundreds of times by many other photographers on RU-vid and nothing new was added or covered, so why make the video? I am not trying to be negative, I just don't understand why make this video, so I thought I would ask.