Frost Patterns

I know I have done these in the past but I hope you will bear with me as early morning frosts are hopefully gradually diminishing. In fact to get good frost patterns you best avoid the heavy frosts as they tend to crystalise into a crusted white opaque sheet from which it is almost impossible to get any decent detail. This was taken after a fairly mild frost and I focussed on area towards the edge of the frosting on a front headlamp of a car. The headlamp reflector helps to lighten up the areas between the crystals and give you better 3D modelling. The blip is just a tiny portion of the overall image as it gives you a better idea of how the individual crystals develop.

Obviously each shot of crystals you take is totally unique but there can also be changes of style. For example when I took some very wind-blown crystals I got feathery patterns whereas this sort of molten metal effect I have only encountrered once before. I am not sure but this may be because the crystals have already begun to thaw leading to rounded rather than sharp edges.

For the techie-minded, it is a focus stack of ten images taken with a Canon EOS 7D with a reversed manual 28mm lens at f22 at 1/10th sec. The extreme close-focussing was done with a Manfrotto 454 Micro Positioning Plate and a Manfrotto 410 Geared Junior Tripod Head. Without these geared focussing aids I do not think I would bother as this level of magnification demands extremely tight tolerances. Even though I am using mirror lock-up there tends to be minor changes between re-focussed shots which means that the eventual stacked image needs some cropping.