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I took my camera, 90mm macro, LED macro ring light, tripod and wireless remote release into work with me in an attempt to try my hand at focus stacking macro images.

My technique was this:

- find a suitable subject
- setup your composition - normal photography rules apply - you have to consider your subject and your background (even if you're trying to make sure the background is nicely blurred out)
- lock down on a tripod - you want to take a sequence of images so you can't move between them
- select an appropriate aperture, shutter speed and iso for your shot - I suggest you go into full manual for this since you don't want this to change between shots otherwise the blending which happens later on may get ugly - personally I used a relatively wide aperture (around f/4 to f/5.6) because I want the background to go all smooth and buttery and I don't want any distractions there
- put the lens into manual focus mode
- focus your lens on the closest part of your subject - and then rotate the focus fractionally so your focusing slightly in front of this point (basically it will seem like everything is out of focus at this point) and take a shot
- rotate the focus ring fractionally so that it focuses slightly further away from the camera and take another shot
- repeat the above for however many times till your point of focus moves just past the furthest part of your subject that you want to be in focus
- load the sequence of images into the stacking software and possibly adjust some parameters and let it do it's thing
- voila...

NB: another technique for this includes using something like a macro focusing rail on you tripod - in effect moving the camera forward and back fractionally with a fixed manual focus instead of changing focus on the lens

Some things to consider:

- if you shoot a sequence of images stopped down you may need to take less images because the depth of field for each image covers a wider area but you are more likely to end up with a more distinct and messier background
- if your camera or subject moves much between shots during the sequence you are likely to be hosed - software these days is pretty good and seems to be able to do remarkable things with auto aligning images but there's only so much it will be able to cope with - see my failed day below
- objects often change their size and position from shot to shot due to focus distance changes (and with my Tamron 90mm f/2.8 1:1 macro which extends the front of the lens dramatically with changes in focus and I can see the composition change slightly) however the software seemed to be able to cope quite well with this

The results

My first day out from the office was a bit of a disaster - I'd headed into Hyde Park in the city during lunchtime (I know not the greatest time to be trying this) but the main problem was the gusts of wind blowing the flowers. I tried to shoot between gusts when motion was minimised but it was a quest in futility... basically the stacking software did a great job with some of the bits which didn't move so much but the petals blowing in the wind or long stems swaying in the breeze resulted in incredibly sharp blurry messes

Not to be deterred I headed out again today but this time to the Royal Botanical Gardens here in the city and looked for more sheltered plants or ones with stronger stems and branches which would hold my subject still enough for the shots I wanted. This resulted in much improved results as you'll see below and in forthcoming days as I process the rest of the images...

Firstly here is the shot you'd normally take. The subject is not particularly small so I could shoot with a little distance - I'm stopped down to f/11 for increased depth of field which even with the LED ring light required I shoot at ISO 1600 at 1/100th. I've focused sort of in the middle of the depth of the front face of the subject and as you can see it's sort of sharp in limited places - it's not horrendous but it's not great



Here is the result of stacking 12 images shot again at 1/100th but at f/4.5 meaning I only needed to be at ISO 320 - IMHO whilst not fantastic is still a much better result



more to come...

FYI: This was the best of the fail shots from the first days attempts

You can see what happens when your subject is moving in the breeze - I'm actually astounded the software did this good a job stacking them (when you step quickly through the individual frames in Lightroom you can see the stem & flower swaying back and forth and the petals fluttering in the wind) but you can see the obvious stacking errors in various places - a little of which I tried fixing in post...

Hi Rodney,
It is interesting to see that your method of focus adjustment on the camera is working. If I did this with the 105 it would alter the magnification as well.
1:1 is only achieved on the 105 at closest focus. I thought this was the same for the 90 but could obviously be wrong.
I would be on the path to a focus rail if I were going to get seriously into stacking.
Nice work on the red flowers in the other post.

colin_12 wrote:It is interesting to see that your method of focus adjustment on the camera is working. If I did this with the 105 it would alter the magnification as well. 1:1 is only achieved on the 105 at closest focus. I thought this was the same for the 90 but could obviously be wrong. I would be on the path to a focus rail if I were going to get seriously into stacking. Nice work on the red flowers in the other post.

Hi Colin - this is true and somewhat the same with the Tamron 90 as well (in fact it also extends the front of the lens significantly with focus as well) - i.e. if I quickly flick through the source images for the stack in Lightroom I can see the object noticably zoom - however the software seems to compensate for this - magic

FYI I went back to Botanic Gardens with the Nikon 105 and did some more and they also stacked perfectly OK - will be posting them up in the next few days

colin_12 wrote:It is interesting to see that your method of focus adjustment on the camera is working. If I did this with the 105 it would alter the magnification as well.
1:1 is only achieved on the 105 at closest focus. I thought this was the same for the 90 but could obviously be wrong.
I would be on the path to a focus rail if I were going to get seriously into stacking.

Hi Colin,
I have been playing with this too and using the 105. I have tried both rails and altering focus. Both seem to work equally well.
Rodney is using specialist software while I am using PS CS5. His results look better than mine, but whether that is because he is a better photographer or his software works better, I couldn't say.