Smaller Things #3

Little Blue Flowers

I was so busy taking multiple photos for a focus stack of this plant that I did not notice that I was kneeling in a patch of poison ivy. Fortunately, I was not affected and got the shot with no ill effects.

Berry Blossoms

From the looks of the leaves and thorny branches, I believe this if a type of wild raspberry.

Variegated Cilantro

Taking a break from the manipulated rock painting and doing macro shots at home. I’m not done with the rock art yet, more coming soon.

Ready For A Close-up

This gallery contains 2 photos.

One of my remaining lenses for my Canon cameras is a Canon 100mm 2.8 macro. The first image I chose to allow a bit of background bokeh and the other I used focus stacking.

Purple Columbine

Up close and personal with one of my favorite blossoms in the garden.  Detail achieved by focus stacking 40 images using a Canon 100mm 2.8 macro lens.  ISO 50, 100mm, f/3.2

A Bad Stack…

or accidental art?

When blending this stack of images, I did not align the images first.  Although not what I was expecting, it turned in to an interesting piece of art.

Focus Stacking

As time permits, I am continuing to learn more about focus stacking.  Since spring is doing it’s best to finally make an appearance in northern Minnesota, the garden is doing it’s best to respond.  A few small flowers have sprung up and it seemed a good opportunity to try capturing two small clumps of blooms.

The first group is a stack of 22 images, the second was 19.  If you look closely on the first, you will notice the tip of one leaf in the foreground where I missed focus.  I missed several on the second.  I’m excited by the possibilities of using focus stacking and look forward to applying it in other ways.

My set-up: Canon DSLR, Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro, ASUS Android tablet running DSLR Controller (works with most Canon DSLRs).  I export images from Lightroom as Photoshop layers, then use the Auto-Align if needed and Auto-Blend for combining the stack.  There are many videos on You-Tube that describe the technique.