Spice it Up! - a photo on Flickriver

Spice it Up!

             #MacroMondays
 #Seeds

The nearby Asian grocery store sells delicious fresh black pepper (so it's still soft and green, with a floral taste), and I wondered if peppercorns (thinking of the shrivelled black peppercorns) really are seeds. During my research, I learned that the dried fruit of Piper nigrum technically isn't a seed anymore because one can't grow pepper with it. But one could do so with the fresh green peppercorns. These aren't the same as what we know as "green pepper" because for that, the unripe (unripe as a plant, but already ripe to eat) peppercorns are freeze-dried or cured in a salty brine to preserve the green colour. The actual seed is the white pit or "stone" (not sure what the correct term is) that you can find when you crack the soft green outer "shell" of the still unripe peppercorn open. That white seed is, processed from the ripened peppercorns (red in colour), what we know as "white pepper". 

So I carefully scratched a fresh peppercorn with a sharp knife and then gently peeled a little bit of the green outer shell off the white seed. To get as close as possible, I used the extension tubes and the Raynox DCR-250 close-up lens. As usual, focusing with this setup was a little tricky. At first, I almost immediately had the peppercorn in focus, but later on, the camera really struggled a lot, the lenses' motor pumped back and forth, and manual focusing wasn't any easier. I should use the extension tubes more often. Or finally get the Laowa 2x Ultra macro (GAS, anyone?). 

Setup: I know this would have looked good against black, but this is what I do most of the time, so once again I used the small matte, gold-coloured piece of cardboard as backdrop to achieve a softer, lighter look. One might call this a "mid-key" setup ;). Lights used were a natural light photo lamp from above and two LED lights from the left and the right. I also used a green bottle as colour filter which I put in front of the right LED to highlight the fresh green colour of the peppercorn's outer shell. 

HMM, Everyone, and have a great week ahead!

Taken on: August 6, 2023

Tags:

Macro Mondays

Seeds

macro photography

pepper

black pepper

bokeh

Piper nigrum

Piper album

fresh pepper

unripe

green pepper

peppercorn

Pfeffer

Pfefferkorn

grün

weiß

poivre noir

pepe

pimienta negra

pimenta-preta

pieprz czarny

karabiber

Πέ

το

μέλαν pupur

du piobar sort

peber пе

พริกไทย

コショウ

胡椒

extension tubes

Zwischenringe

Kenko

Raynox DCR-250

Olympus OM-D

E-M1 Mark III

M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm 1:2.8 Macro

DXO PhotoLab 6

Lightroom

Micro Four Thirds

ThroughHerLens « less

Sets appears in: • Macro Mondays

Groups appears in: • MACRO MONDAYS • ! 90+ Faves (P1,A+F3) more » • The New Focus 1a « less

Camera: Olympus E-M1MarkIII, f/2.8, 1/20 sec, 60mm (=120mm), ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Olympus E-M1MarkIII
Lens:	OLYMPUS M.60mm F2.8 Macro
Aperture:	f/2.8
Exposure Time:	0.05 sec (1/20)
Focal Length:	60mm (35mm equivalent: 120mm)
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	-2.3 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 12.4 (Windows)
Show full info

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