focus stacking Archives - Page 2 of 2

24JUN2021 – Photography – Focus Stack – Beetle

June 24, 2021June 24, 2021 photog Photography beetle, focus stacking, insect, macrophotography, photography, Sony 90mm f/2.8 macro lens, Sony A7 III

For today’s experiment in photographing dead bugs here’s a beetle with brightly colored legs.

Part of the craft is arranging the dead bug so that he doesn’t look quite so much like road kill. Also the other part of the deal is first post processing all the input files in terms of exposure and light balance. But right now I’m just adjusting the merged file which is less flexible than the raw input files. But this is as much a learning exercise for me as anything else. So I’m taking some short cuts. The main thing is the merge does create photos with enormously wider areas of sharp focus.

This beetle is less than a half inch in length. I named him Bob.

23JUN2021 – OCF Update – Focus Stacking Experiments Resume

June 23, 2021June 23, 2021 photog Photography focus stacking, macrophotography, Microsoft Affinity Photo, photography, Sony 90mm f/2.8 macro lens, Sony A7 III

In March of 2020 I assembled the software on my laptop to be able to do focus staking out in the field. It was cumbersome especially since the laptop I used was very large but I managed to get a few focus stacks done both outside and in. But soon after a crack developed on the screen of the laptop. Eventually I got it repaired but I shifted operation to asmaller laptop and abandoned the older one to a table in my home office. And up until now I’ve been so busy with other things that I haven’t had time to load up the software for stacking onto my new laptop.

Well, for the last week I’ve been dealing with software issues. Incompatibilities between the latest Microsoft C ++ version and the Sony remote control package gave me fits but I found a work around and finally was able to run it today. I’m just doing some still life test subjects indoors but I hope to have some interesting macro subjects soon.

A Focus Stack in Need of Some Work

March 17, 2020March 17, 2020 photog Photography focus stacking

My idea was that this cantaloupe would make a good substitute for one of those really weird looking moons of Jupiter. But I need to get the exposure right and then I’ll need to practice cutting it out of the background with photo shop. Then if I can superimpose the Enterprise next to it in front of a starry field, I can drag in Shatner. “We have to rendezvous with the Vulcans on Cantaloupus IV or millions of people will …. DIE!”

14MAR2020 – Photography – Macro – Focus Stack – Hyacinth Shoot

March 14, 2020March 14, 2020 photog Photography Affinity Photo, focus stacking, hyacinth, hyacinth shoots, macro, macro photography, Microsoft Affinity Photo, photography, Sony 90mm f/2.8 macro lens, Sony A7 III, Sony Photography, spring

As noted earlier I had a touch of cabin fever so I decided to try my first outdoor focus stack. What this means is that I have to drag along a laptop computer and a tethering line in addition to the camera and tripod. All of this is easy enough. What isn’t easy is telling the wind to stop blowing for the requisite two or three minutes of exposure time. And in fact, this picture is cropped as tightly as it is because some leaves were blowing around in the debris pile. Looking at it now I also note that the left side shoot is a little over exposed. So let us say as art it’s slightly underwhelming. But as an experiment in field macrophotography technique it will be “required reading at the Academy.”

Name That Tooth – The Answer

March 8, 2020March 27, 2020 photog Photography Affinity Photo, focus stacking, macrophotography, Sony 90mm f\2.8 Macro G Lens, Sony A7 III, spider, tarantula

“There agelong she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form, … and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness. … But none could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world.”

I can’t stump you folks.

I’ve got to say, this photo stacking has amazing capability. The detail is impressive and the stitching is imperceptible. I tried stacking jpegs and then raw files. I thought the composite made from raw files looked very slightly better but it took an hour and a half to process. That’s more than double the jpeg time.

Name That Tooth

March 8, 2020March 27, 2020 photog Photography focus stacking, spider, tarantula

Here’s a wildlife shot to guess at. Whose tooth is this? A tiger? A saber-tooth tiger? A rattlesnake? A vampire bat? A regular vampire? A dinosaur? That creepy monster from Alien? Take a guess.

Focus Stack – Dried Flower

January 11, 2020January 11, 2020 photog Photography focus stacking, macrophotography, Microsoft Affinity Photo, Sony 90mm f\2.8 Macro G Lens, Sony A7 III

When is a dried flower better than live spider? When you’re doing a focus stack. When the subject doesn’t move it comes out a lot better.

The first three photos are three of the 136 photos that I stacked together. Notice depth of focus in each only comprises a small fraction of the total image.