Frog Stack

[Randy Stout]

This fine fellow was perching on a rock by my pond, and his position allowed me to use a tripod, since I wasn't hanging over the water like most of my frog shots!

Oly EM-5 60mm Macro, f/2.8 1/125s ISO 250

Post: Selected 5 frames from the series that I had manually varied the focus point, front to back, and then auto aligned and stacked in photoshop. Selective sharpening of the subsequent image

This was my first time trying a stack in photoshop, and it was interesting to see it work. I didn't focus deep enough to give complete sharpness of the far aspects of the frog, but considering I was shooting at f/2.8, at about 10" away, I thought it was encouraging. The reason for the large f/stop was two fold. One, I wanted to try the stack, and two, the background was quite busy.

Advice always appreciated.

Cheers

Randy

[Warren Spreng]

Handsome fellow! I have only tried stacking once and it didn't turn out so well, I like the fact that the face is nice and sharp and there is a gentle fade to the more OOF areas. I might want more of the rock on the left to have a little more DOF.

[David Cowling]

Nice looking frog Randy but I am curious about the large blemish behind the eye. I don't know anything about stacking so can't comment on the technical aspects. The eye and in focus areas are nice and sharp. I appreciate that you used such a wide aperture because of the busy background.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I too love the dof , and feel the oof parts are stylishly left there. Great colours to this fella (what species is it?). I also like the slant of the rock. Nothing to fault here, very nicely executed image.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks guys.

David, the large oval area just posterior and inferior to the eye is the tympanic membrane for his ear.

This is a female green frog.

Cheers

Randy

PS: Now if it would just stop raining, I would try some more stacking!

[Ron Conlon]

Very nice, good to see stacking of images taken in the field. The head is nicely captured in focus. Perhaps putting the left knee out of focus (by retouching in an out-of-focus frame of the knee) would improve it. I find it draws my eye, and to my brain looks a little unnatural in terms of focal planes.