| Joined: | Mon Apr 2nd, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
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I didn't check the exposures I used well enough, they were badly blurred and suffered from movement.
I went back and selected the darkest images, which had been exposed at 1/100 sec. Doing focus stacking outside is not ideal if there is any wind blowing.
They worked much better. Until I examined the images I hadn't realised the plant was hairy!
I am considering making a focus stacking rail with a stepper motor which can be set to move the camera as little as one thousandth of an inch per exposure. Meaningless for normal flowers but for insects it needs such a fine movement.
I fully intend to make more of these stacked images. I am somewhat miffed that Photoshop refused to get involved. Although I tried, star stacking software doesn't work for focus stacking!
As usual post processing is significant, I guess it varies between photographs but artefacts and double edges are quite a factor. Re-focusing the lens, even slightly changes the angle of view progressively from the centre of the image. The subject 'grows' even though the camera is locked down, so in each successive exposure the subject changes in size in the frame and that's with a simple, unitary focus lens like the old micro Nikkor 105mm f/4.0 Ai lens. With the modern equivalent the image size must change drastically.
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Robert.