Mock Strawberry

[Ron Conlon]

Duchesnea indica or Potentilla indica--different genus from the true strawberry--originally from Asia, now invasive in the US.
I have had a go at stacking, this is a Photoshop stack of 10 images if a through-focus series. The key seemed to be a very tight series of photos with very small differences in level of focus--barely touching the lens, I can see why folks who do it a lot use a slider with a micrometer screw.
Lightbox with remote flash, tripod, D5100 200mm f/9 1/200s ISO 100

[John Robinson]

Interesting shot, and I love black backgrounds !!
Stacking is great fun. A macro slider can be a devil in disguise !. I have been playing with stacking for several years now and there are a couple of points worth remembering. I use CZM - always have. the rail system moves the camera as opposed to using the lens focus ring-which I do. I did get a couple of sliders a while back but had problems. The camera is quite heavyand this means there can be jerkiness in the rack and pinion movement.. Thats what I found anyway but they were relatively cheap at about £20 each. You can get automated setups which are very expensive. I think its more fun to do it manually- more sense of achievement so to speak! As Ron says you need to keep your hand off the focus ring when actually snapping. It comes with practice. My problem has always come from slight movement.. The best definition is always supposed to be about two stops down from fully open. It certainly makes a difference. Very often at thre distances I work as an example, I have a DOF at f5.6 of one to three mm. That gives you an odea of how many "planess" of focus you need to get all your subject covered.
Happy stacking snapping !!
JohnR
PS there is CZM and CZP- both free.

[Ron Conlon]

Thanks Peter and John. Thanks for the helpful information. I did feel that I had the lens stopped down too much, will try again a little more open. The first half dozen stacks I did over the past few days went smoothly in Photoshop, but then it refused to align several and ones that it did align it didn't stack properly and it didn't give me any constructive information about what I was doing wrong. Stacking is habit-forming, so I expect I will be looking for a good slider (I was dubious of the cheaper ones, but the more expensive ones are a good deal more expensive, but I won't waste my money, thanks John). CombineZ is Windows-only, so I will need to look elsewhere, being an acolyte of Jobs.

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Ron,
I don't do focus stacking so can't anything there but I do like the image and think you have done very well here. Focus looks good throughout to me and I like the position of the leaves in the lower part of the frame. Very nice image.

Allen

[Ron Conlon]

I looked into rails and software a bit. The motorized rails which interface with camera and software approximate the price of the better rails. The website of the non-free software that the stack-heads use (Zerene) has a page discussing the use of rails versus the focus ring for generating stacks, and they recommend the focus ring for things above the size of a raisin (to crudely summarize a more nuanced discussion). I have not been happy with PS for stacking--sometimes it works like a dream, and sometimes it balks or gives you a pile of crap, with no useful feedback. I do love the result when it works, and if new software makes stacking less challenging, then there are lots of other things to work on to improve.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very nicely detailed image I think it works well. The subject is shown to maximum benefit with the black background.

[John Robinson]

Ron
Try Combine CZM (Alan Hadley programme.) Free
It works fine for me. I even use it when doing a few shots in a series by hand. Its amazing how it aligns them automatically.
Cheers
John

[Ron Conlon]

John, CZM is Windows only, and I only have a Mac, thanks. Bought Zerene today, and and impressed so far.