Seven stacked botanical close-ups

GardenersHelper

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Nick
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I have spent the past several days exploring focus stacking, capturing short videos, typically about a second long, with my Panasonic FZ330 bridge camera and Canon 500D close-up lens, and processing them in Helicon Focus. This is a new technique for me and I think it may change how I do some of my botanical photography. That being the case I should probably add something to my Journey thread describing what I have learnt, but that could be rather long and dry, and may be of only limited interest. Instead, at least for now, I thought I would simply post some examples. Because of the geometry involved I doubt whether any of these could have been captured with a single shot.

I did not note the exact numbers, but each of these images is a stack of somewhere between 10 and 40 or so 4K video frames. The videos were captured hand-held using Panasonic's Post focus technology, which captured between around 40 and 160 frames for each capture, varying the focus during the capture.

It was breezy. Not only were the subjects moving, but in one case (#4) parts of the subject were moving a lot relative to other parts of the subject, with lesser relative movements for some of the other subjects. The software handles "rigid" subject movement quite well, but relative movement of different parts of the subject causes artefacts. I therefore did a bit of retouching in Helicon Focus for several of these before passing them on to Silkypix. After Silkypix, the first three had minor adjustments in Lightroom. After Lightroom, the first one had its background smoothed in Nik Dfine.

#1 ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/125 sec

1038 1 135 ISO 100 F2.8 1-125 sec(C) SP7 LR6 Df 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#2 ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/60 sec

1038 2 139 approx 18-image stack ISO100 F2.8 1-60sec (A,Radius3,Smoothing4) SP7 LR6 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#3 ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/60 sec

1038 3 143 ISO 100, F2.8, 1-60sec (A,Radius3,Smoothing4) SP7 LR6b 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#4 ISO200, f/2.8 1/100 sec

1038 4 145 copying for moving seed pod ISO200 F2.8 1-100sec (A,Radius3,Smoothing4) SP7 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#5 ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/250 sec

1038 5 176b Copy-retouched edges ISO200 F2.8 1-250sec (A,Radius3,Smoothing4) SP7 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#6 ISO 200, f2.8, 1/250 sec

1038 6 465 ISO200 F2.8 1-250sec with 3 double spots retouched (A,Radius8,Smoothing4) SP7 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#7 ISO 200, f/4, 1/320 sec

1038 7 504b ISO200 F4 1-320sec (A,Radius3,Smoothing4) SP7 1300h
by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


--
Nick
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/collections/
GardenersAssistant Photography Videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw
https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/t...-dslr-primes-a-journey-of-exploration.531050/
 
W o W They really P o P what great shots (as always) Nick, I dont have the patience to do what you do so I leave it for you to do and show everyone how its done.
 
Excellent images, well done, your patience is to be applauded (y)
 
W o W They really P o P what great shots (as always) Nick, I dont have the patience to do what you do so I leave it for you to do and show everyone how its done.
The subjects really do stand out very well Nick.
Paul.
Excellent images, well done, your patience is to be applauded (y)
Another great set Nick. I always learn something new from your posts. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you Graham, Paul, Jak and Leroy. Given the amount of hand-shake I was surprised that they worked at all!

As to patience, it needed a bit of patience to work the process out, especially the post processing, but having done that it turns out that the capturing is quick and easy to do. The processing can also be quick and easy if the subject is moving as a single item. It's only if the parts of the subject move relative to one another that the processing gets more involved and time-consuming, and my guess is that that will speed it with practice.
 
Great photos, have you ever thought of using a box to deal with breeze? In the book extreme close up photography by Julian Cremona
https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/extreme-close-up-photography-and-focus-stacking
He talks about using a polystyrene box for photos like these - and they help with lighting. He says you can easily get these from vegetable wholesalers or greengrocers but I haven't tried yet also I live in London - we don't have green grocers any more.
 
Great photos, have you ever thought of using a box to deal with breeze? In the book extreme close up photography by Julian Cremona
https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/extreme-close-up-photography-and-focus-stacking
He talks about using a polystyrene box for photos like these - and they help with lighting. He says you can easily get these from vegetable wholesalers or greengrocers but I haven't tried yet also I live in London - we don't have green grocers any more.

Thanks David.

I did try using a windbreak once, a long time ago. I can't remember what I tried using. But I didn't like it - it destroyed the flow. I seem to recall it was difficult to get it into useful positions. I'm happier just waiting for the breeze to abate momentarily, or not.
 
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