Microsoft Affinity Photo Archives

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.

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.”

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.