Focus Stacking Macro

[jcass]

Two images from my backyard this morning with overcast skies, windy, and a thunderstorm threatening. The dandelion was 15 images, "increment" = 4, F5.6, and about 10 inches from the front of the lens to the dandelion. For the wild strawberry, 30 images, increment 4, F5.6, and about 6 inches from the berry. Taken with R5 on a tripod. I used Lightroom Classic and Photoshop for the focus stack. Photoshop nailed the dandelion with the color contrast, but I'm not as happy about the berry. Photoshop didn't correctly mask between the green leaves and red berry buds. Not a biggie though.

I was filling bird feeders and bath and noticed a lone dandelion that just seemed to be shaped perfectly to my eye. A couple of days ago, I watched a video about focus bracketing macro shots, so I got the camera and tripod and tried the recommended settings. The biggest difference in these and what I've tried in the past is the number of shots which was shocking to me. I never before tried more than five. Oh, how the times are changing.

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[Stephen]

Two images from my backyard this morning with overcast skies, windy, and a thunderstorm threatening. The dandelion was 15 images, "increment" = 4, F5.6, and about 10 inches from the front of the lens to the dandelion. For the wild strawberry, 30 images, increment 4, F5.6, and about 6 inches from the berry. Taken with R5 on a tripod. I used Lightroom Classic and Photoshop for the focus stack. Photoshop nailed the dandelion with the color contrast, but I'm not as happy about the berry. Photoshop didn't correctly mask between the green leaves and red berry buds. Not a biggie though.

I was filling bird feeders and bath and noticed a lone dandelion that just seemed to be shaped perfectly to my eye. A couple of days ago, I watched a video about focus bracketing macro shots, so I got the camera and tripod and tried the recommended settings. The biggest difference in these and what I've tried in the past is the number of shots which was shocking to me. I never before tried more than five. Oh, how the times are changing.

View attachment 29282

View attachment 29283

For the second wild strawberry photo, I think you can try Digital Photo Professional (free software from Canon), it might give a better focus stacking result. The software is easy to use (focus stacking) and easy to remove artifacts (ghost peaks.......). Moreover, you can try hand-held in-camera focus bracketing. The cameras in the EOS R series are well fit for the purpose.

You can find my work here (flowers, focus stacking)

Flowers (hand-held in-camera focus stacking)

Camera : Canon EOS R7 with EF 100mm f/2.8 macro IS Aperture Priority (Av), ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/1000s Hand-held, CRaw, in-camera focus bracketing with depth composite enabled No. of shots : 10, Step : 4 Post-process : Canon DPP (focus stack), Topaz denoise AI (sharpening, optional), copy EXIF...

rfshooters.com

I also posted some insect photos using focus stacking in this Genre (Macro and Close-up)