My First attempt at focus stacking

[Rickbb]

Playing around with the focus stacking abilities of my D850. I first tried 100 and 50 shots and after the first 10 or 12 shots all the rest were out of focus. I started focused on the bottom, (from the DOF point of view), and even with the settings at the minimum for distance of focus change anything after 10 shots or so the rest were completely out of focus. Maybe a different lens would yield a different result.

D850 body, 40mm Nikon macro lens, (DX lens with the 850 set to auto DX crop). All shots at 1:1 F29 and 500 shutter speed, using an ancient Vivitar ring flash. I tried to stack in Photoshop and they all failed miserably, I almost never use Photoshop so that's probably just me. Wound up with a satisfactory image with just 9 images and using Light Room with the HDR merge function.

Honey bee found dead and dried out on the window sill of my shop for a model.

First shot is the merge of the raw files, second is with some small tweaks in midrange, and sharpness in LRC. (Apologies' for the background, it's my work bench top.)

 

[smoke665]

I prefer stacking in PS, but LR Auto Blend can also work where it isn't as critical. When shooting multiple images for focus stacking I find it easier and more precises to use a Focus Rail.