Product Shot 2 - Taking Kundalini's Advice

[MohaimenK]

Saw a vid he posted with my lens shot so thought I'd give it a 2nd go. What you think?

 

[gsgary]

The Canon logo is not really sharp enough on the second shot

 

[MohaimenK]

The Canon logo is not really sharp enough on the second shot

yeah, wasn't sure if i wanted it to be focused on that or the lens, so I ended up going for the lens instead.

BTW, these were shot w/ sunlight No artificial lights.

 

[Overread]

You could always focus stack and get both lens and logo in focus whilst retaining sharpness.

 

[MohaimenK]

You could always focus stack and get both lens and logo in focus whilst retaining sharpness.

what is that? please explain? take 2 shots then mask one and the other??

 

[Overread]

To focus stack you first take two or more shots of the subject. You keep the settings the same* including the focus of the lens - you then physically move the camera closer (or further) to (from) the subject; thus moving the focal plan and then take the second shot. Repeat until the whole focus stack is completed - note that smaller movement stages is best and helps to ensure that you have overlay of the depth of field from one shot to the next.

Processing wise there are two approaches.
1) Software - best for large numbers of shots and for when you have a complex scene - combineZP is a free software approach whilst there are commerical options such as Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus. Generally this software is a little like noise and sharpening softare packages in that no single one is better than the others - but that (with good control) in select situations one might have an advantage over the other.
This is one case where differences can be very big and because a lot of work goes into a focus stack before you get to processing those who do a fair amount of it tend to end up collecting the different stacking software options.

2) Manual with layermasks - works, but it can take a long time to do well. With your camera shots you'd probably have no trouble at all with doing it manually because the subject is fairly simple and only 2 or 3 shots isn't that complex - once you start talking flowers and insects and 10-30+ images it becomes the impractical approach.

*for starters keep the settings the same - however shutter speed and aperture are two you can vary. Shutter speed gives no gain or loss (because most of these kind of shot are static) but allows you to also vary the aperture without affecting image quality - aperture changes can be important because focus stacking can give a very harsh line between in focus and out off focus in a shot - esp if you say take 30 shots at 2.8 to stack with - thus one method is to take the last few and first few shots with a smaller aperture to help graduate the line into out of focus (producing a more natural single frame effect)

 

[8ball]

SOOOO can I get one of your first product shots product ( the sip and dip)
I like the shots you did above as well!

 

[MohaimenK]

interesting, I wonder if I could do it faster by taking 2 shots with manual focus and then masking out? but I will look into this. seems interesting.

 

[MohaimenK]

SOOOO can I get one of your first product shots product ( the sip and dip)
I like the shots you did above as well!

LOL! They're still sitting some where in my office room under something. You seriously liked that thing?? haha