Focus Stacking is very popular with people who specialize in macro photography. The simple reason being the knife edge depth of the field on many macro lenses. A 105mm macro lens with an f-stop of 40 might have a depth of field of 0.25 inches. That is under ideal conditions. This makes for some serious problems when you are taking an image of an object of irregular shape or much larger size. Continue reading Focus Stacking, Inside and Outside of Macro Photography
I think I made an impression with my neighbors when they came home and found me siting in the bushes with a large camera, photographing ants. Fortunately for me, they didn’t call the police and I found pretty much the ragged edge of my macro lens’ capabilities. The larger ant measures about 1/4 an inch in length and the bud was around a half an inch in size. The smaller one is about 1/8 of an inch if I had to guess. Continue reading The Extreme Edge of Consumer Macro Photography
I must have sat in the bushes for two hours trying to get a usable photo of a bee on a jasmine flower in my backyard. I had just purchased a $900 dedicated Nikon Macro Lens and was Hell bent on learning the possibilities and the limitation that come with any addition to my equipment collection. Continue reading Active Macro Photography
I bought this coin about 15 years ago as a birthday present for my wife. When I purchase my first dedicated macro lens I had this particular subject in mind. It gave me a chance to really find the edge of where that lens existed as well as my first shot at focus stacking in CS6. Continue reading Alexander the Great
Not all photography needs great planning and sometimes it is just a few feet from your front door, as was the case with this image. I had my macro lens attached and took several photos with an idea in my mind of what I wanted. However this was a happy accident, turning out much better than what I was trying to create.
I have a small confession: I’m usually very good about keeping RAW files on my hard disk and backup drives, but I must have blown it this time as I can only find the photoshop file. The technique I used to bring up the color of this image is discussed in the second half of this post. I apologize for this oversight.
The Digital Lens 