Focus Stacking

I like to shoot small things with the camera. One of my frustrations is the fact that if I shoot an insect with the macro lens, I generally only get a portion of the 'bug' because of the limitations of the camera's focus ability.

Here is an example.

An Imperial Moth Caterpillar on my Flickr page:

Just the face of the insect.

Live shots are a challenge to get right.

However, a nice full shot of something like a mushroom would look so much nicer if the full mushroom were in focus.

The bunch was too much for a proper focus. So I got out my mini tripod and focused on each of the little buggers and then tried to put it all together in a photo program.

I failed.

So I finally decided to try a focus stacking program. I have 30 days to decide if this is something I like.

Helicon Soft is the name of the program.

Here is a shot from two days before that I'd failed miserably on a manual focus 'stack'.

This was run through Helicon.

...Oh by the way, these have been Identified as Common Puffballs also known as Gem Studded Puffballs...

4 images stacked:

Then two days later:

The details came out amazing! 

I found that I can go into manual focus and my camera has a manual focus assist which turns things red to tell you what parts are in focus.

So yesterday, I started to experiment.

I didn't find cool fungi as I was hiking new trails and just enjoying the scenery... but I wondered how much depth I could get if I stacked a landscape scene.

Unstacked, one shot:

It is nice and it would have pleased me just fine. I could have shot with an infinity type setting and would have probably been satisfied. But I wanted to see how stacking...stacked up.

4 stacked shots at different focal lengths:

Oh...I liked it!

Here is another one. Not focus stacked:

So I really loved this spot but wanted the viewer to feel the whole breadth of the place....

So I stacked it from front to back. I wanted the forest in the back to be in focus.

This one gives me a feeling of actually being in there... the immense forest and the small me.

I tried other items like some rocks and a flower seed head. There was no amazing before and after, just clarity which was nice.

But there you go. My experiment in focus stacking with Helicon Soft and manual focus.

Yes I keep experimenting with my camera and photography, it is what gives me some mental breaks from the other things going on in our lives.