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I love banksias, but have always struggled to photograph them. Between the size of the flower and the spikiness of the foliage, I have never quite managed to pull off the "money" shot.
While on the walk with Cameron yesterday I tried a few handheld shots with focus stacking in mind.
The results weren't as wildly successful as Rodney has been managing, but I am pleasantly surprised at how well the concept works even without all the whizzbangery the "experts" try to sell you to do this. Just a camera and a lens. Not even a tripod.
This one I used fixed focus on the lens, and moved slightly between frames.


And for this one I stayed put and moved the focus slightly between shots

Yes the backgrounds need some work, but that's not the point of the exercise.

Comments welcome.

Hey Greg... I'm most impressed with that first one.
How many frames did you take? To get that result handheld is very handy.
The background is a non-issue... look pretty easy to sort out in post to me.

The first one was 9 images and the second 7. There are some gaps in the stack though.

Pretty good going to get 9 stackable shots I reckon... the gaps are not that noticeable on a small image but are certainly clear at full size.
I used Helicon to do a 34 stack using android and that seemed to work well for automating a larger number of shots... no good for hand holding though.
Merging the stack didn't work so well but I think I stuffed something so will need to have another go.
If I can get a complex product shot to work 100% I'll then try in the field with maybe a grevillea (but I'll use a tripod).

Thats pretty good there Greg - and I'm getting more and more impressed as to how good the software is at auto aligning these days. I went out at lunchtime again and did some more Botanic gardens - it was quite a bit windier this time (not as bad as today ) but it's amazing what the software manages to pull off with the subject swaying between the frames.

My tip (and what I now do) is stack the images and then blend (actually almost totally paint/mask) back in the best bokeh (generally from the nearest image) to the majority of the background - that way you tend to get much less of the jittery/nervous background. This tends to be easier with some shots than others I've found - especially if you have to deal with crap near the edges of your actual subject (or the things you're trying to get sharp).

Remorhaz wrote:with the subject swaying between the frames.

In my case its the photographer doing the swaying.

I am still just using PS for the stacking. It seems to mostly do the job. I'm not convinced I want to keep on down this road & don't want to spend the money yet.
I know there is a try before you buy, but I have a history of buying anyway & then never using it again.

Remorhaz wrote: and then blend (actually almost totally paint/mask) back in the best bokeh (generally from the nearest image) to the majority of the background

Good tip. I'll give it a whirl.

These turned out quite nicely, esp the first one! I guess we can stop buying all this gear now...