Water Boatman 2 - focus stack

[Steve Maxson]

Another shot of a Water Boatman (Family Corixidae) taken in my 2-gallon aquarium. This is a stack of 19 images combined in Zerene Stacker. The mirror-like air bubble carried on the bottom surface of this insect is more visible in this photo and the bubble can be seen extending down around the base of the middle legs. 5D II, MP-E 65 mm, 1/200, f/8, ISO 100, MT24-EX macro twin flash (diffused), tripod, RRS macro focusing rail. I blurred the brownish portion of the background, cleaned up many tiny bits of debris in the water, and ran NR on the background. All comments are welcome and appreciated.

[Ravi Hirekatur]

Wow! What an incredible image! Perfectly sharp for the entire depth, great detail, especially in the eye. Nice placement and composition and perfect exposure. That must have sat still like a rock for 19 exposures with flash!

[Julie Kenward]

P.E.R.F.E.C.T.

End of story.

(Jeez you blow me away with this lens!) :bg3:

[bhavya joshi]

no negative word...that means ..perfect image.. now you really inspiring me...to do this aquarium stuff.. I am thinking..which bug is good for photo shoot....:bg3:

[Brendan Dozier]

That is perfect, Steve, and very, very cool looking water bug! Amazing detail, diagonal lines, and the light glow puts it over the top. I see you use different numbers of images in your stacks depending on the situation. What determines how many you use? Is it the number of total focus points you shoot? Do you shoot a lot more and edit some out? Excellent work! :cheers:

[Julie Kenward]

Good questions Brendan! Please share, Steve...

[Galliani Carlo]

very great image I don't like focus stack but this is a beatiful shot

[Christian Neumann]

Absolutely great.

[Steve Maxson]

Thanks for the kind words everyone! :S3:

Brendan - The number of shots I take depends totally on the subject (and keep in mind that this is only the second stacked image I've processed - so I have plenty of fine points to learn). With the RRS focusing rail I can make minute adjustments to the focus. I start by backing off enough that nothing is sharp and then use the focusing rail (it has a threaded bolt-type mechanism that moves the camera forward or backward when you turn a knob) to move in until the closest thing in the image (in this case, it was the tip of the swimming leg on the right side of the frame) comes barely in focus. Then I take a photo, give the focus rail knob about 1/2 turn, take another photo - and so on until the farthest thing away from me that I want to be sharp comes into focus. Pretty simple, really - with the caveat that the subject can't move during this whole process. Another point to consider is your f/stop - clearly, you would need to shoot more images at, say, f/2.8 than at f/16.

[Ken Childs]

Fantastic! It's hard to believe that this is only your second stacked image. Talk about starting at the top!

I knew you and that lens could produce some great stacks! Is your camera hooked up to your computer when you are shooting these?

Once important thing to consider when choosing an aperture setting is the DLA (Diffraction Limited Aperture) of your camera. The DLA on Steve's 5D II is f/10.2 so he would always want to shoot at f/10 or lower f# to get the sharpest results. The DLA on my T1i is f/7.5 so I would need to shoot at f/7.1 or lower f# to keep it as sharp as possible.

[Brendan Dozier]

Thanks for the kind words everyone! :S3:

Brendan - The number of shots I take depends totally on the subject (and keep in mind that this is only the second stacked image I've processed - so I have plenty of fine points to learn). With the RRS focusing rail I can make minute adjustments to the focus. I start by backing off enough that nothing is sharp and then use the focusing rail (it has a threaded bolt-type mechanism that moves the camera forward or backward when you turn a knob) to move in until the closest thing in the image (in this case, it was the tip of the swimming leg on the right side of the frame) comes barely in focus. Then I take a photo, give the focus rail knob about 1/2 turn, take another photo - and so on until the farthest thing away from me that I want to be sharp comes into focus. Pretty simple, really - with the caveat that the subject can't move during this whole process. Another point to consider is your f/stop - clearly, you would need to shoot more images at, say, f/2.8 than at f/16.

So about how long did this sequence take you to shoot? Amazing this little guy stayed still. Please forgive my lack of understanding, but did you shoot this at just f8 or did you vary it?

[Steve Maxson]

Ken - Thanks for the comments! My camera wasn't connected to the computer - I just looked through the viewfinder the regular way. Good info about the DLA of the camera - I didn't know that before. Just looking at the RAW files (pre-sharpening) with this camera/lens combo, I can see that f/8 produces greater sharpness than f/16.

Brendan - This sequence probably took a couple minutes to shoot (shoot/reset focus/make sure flashes are recharged/shoot again/repeat). Fortunately, water boatmen are good at posing - which is why they are good candidates for focus stacking. Sometimes they do move during a shooting sequence - in which case you mutter a few appropriate words :t3 and start over. I used f/8 for all the photos. I processed all the RAW files exactly the same way in ACR and converted them to tiffs. Stacking was done on these tiff files. After stacking, you can do any other PP just as you would with a standard image. I hope this helps. :S3:

[Ken Childs]

Good info about the DLA of the camera - I didn't know that before. Just looking at the RAW files (pre-sharpening) with this camera/lens combo, I can see that f/8 produces greater sharpness than f/16.

You can find the DLA for most Canon DSLR's on this site. Go to any of the Canon camera reviews and there's a chart with the info. It's a great site with lots of info on Canon and Canon compatible products. He's slowly adding Nikon info, too.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/

[Steve Maxson]

You can find the DLA for most Canon DSLR's on this site. Go to any of the Canon camera reviews and there's a chart with the info. It's a great site with lots of info on Canon and Canon compatible products. He's slowly adding Nikon info, too.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/

Thanks Ken. This site has a lot of useful info - after a quick look around, I find that the lens reviews are also very helpful.