DisCARDed

#macromondays
#card

Well, indeed. Because this chip has in fact never seen me typing a PIN number at an Automated Teller Machine (and neither has it seen such a machine from the inside). My bank had accidentally issued that debit card, so I only ever got as far as signing it. I’d decided to keep the card for a possible future use for a Macro Monday theme, however, and that future is now.

At first I went for the chip’s frontside. I’d noticed that the lines on the chip are actually kind of engraved, so I held a torch right behind the chip to see if backlighting would achieve anything. It did, the lines were glowing in a lovely electric blue tone, and I’d also discovered that there were some letters printed on the chip, like a secret message (that, so far, I’ve failed to decipher). So I took a few nicely abstract images of the chip’s front side, but then I started wondering if backlighting the back side of the chip might yield an even more interesting result. I think it did, and this is what you can see here. The glow pattern that emerged looks like a graphic character to me, and I wish it would mean Peace.

The setup was really simple, card fixated with two clamps, put on a weighty tome to achieve the right shooting position, camera placed directly in front of it, torch held directly behind the chip, one soft light placed right above the tome and card. I’ve taken images both with the 60mm macro lens plus extension tubes and the 30 mm macro lens without extension tubes (as it has a 2,5x magnification). The images turned out all very similar, only the amount of glow of the lines varied due to the angle of the handheld torch, and this photo had the best colours and contrast. Processed in DXO PL5 and Lightroom where I’ve slightly enhanced the colours (namely with LR’s Primary sliders for red, green and blue).

HMM Everyone, and let us pray for peace for the Ukrainians and for the World.

I’ll catch up with you tonight!

Posted by Silke Klimesch on 2022-02-28 15:00:09

Tagged: , Macro Mondays , card , macro , close-up , extreme macro , backlit , glow , mysterious , graphic character , looks like a graphic character , halftone , colour halftoning , blue and yellow , blue , yellow , red , white , CMYK , EMV , debit card , ATM card , Girocard , EC-Karte , EMV-Chip , Chip , Druckraster , Leuchten , Schriftzeichen , hintergrundbeleuchtet , tarjeta de débito , carta di debito , retinatura , retroilluminato , betaalkaart , halftoon , pankkikorrti , rasteri , karta debetowa , raster , banka kartı , Дебетова картка , Півтонове зображення , 80-MP High-Resolution shot , Olympus , OM-D , E-M1 Mark III , M.Zuiko Digital ED 30mm F3.5 Macro , DXO PhotoLab 5 , Lightroom , Primary sliders , 1:1 , square format