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Tiny flower focus stack. Successes and failures.

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Hi all,

To set the scale I am working at, here is a pic of the flower next to my finger print:
FP1.webp


I setup in my studio (garden shed) with a GODOX V1 as an off camera flash. I decided on this setup after much testing of various diffusors:
20250810_103749.webp




20250810_103741.webp



The subject flower is so small I thought I could get a sharp pic of the whole flower with a higher aperture (f40):
F40.webp

As you can see that did not work. I did try at f16 but it was not much better.

I started Focus stacking at f5.1 and 20 images:

2025-08-10 11-26-45 (C,S1).webp


Dont you love a good halo :BangHead:. I applied a 1 stop exposure compensation and tried again:

2025-08-10 11-51-06 (C,S1).webp


Halo not as obvious but still a bit unsharp.

So tried again with the following settings:
Aperture - F5
40 Image stack
Focus step - 1
Delay - 3 seconds
Exposure Compensation minus 1.7

40FILES.webp


Helicon Focus render settings:
Screenshot 2025-08-10 134205.webp


Final result:

2025-08-10 12-16-14 (C,S3).webp


All in all a very informative little session.

Any and all comments welcome.

CHEERS
JBO
 
Even with a 40 stack image, there appears to be an area of OOF right in the center. I suspect what your missing here is that DOF is a function of aperture, distance to subject AND focal length. For example, comparing a popular brand combination at a minimum focus distance of 12" at f/2.8 a 35mm lens has a DOF of .28 inch, while a 100mm lens at the same settings only has .03 inch. moving to a distance of 36" with same settings, the 35mm has a DOF of 2.78" while the 100mm is only .32 inch. Shifting to a 200 mm which I've done at times you'd need to be at 68" from the subject to equal the same DOF as the 35mm at 12".

I don't remember the exact distance from the subject on this one but it was probably in the neighborhood of 36". The flower is comparable in size to yours, no focus stack, 100mm, f/25, 1/125, ISO 800. Ambient light and reflector. Whether it's one shot or a focus stack, you still need to consider your DOF when choosing focal length/distance/aperture and if doing a focal stack, adjust your image stack number to cover the desired total DOF.
Pretty In Pink by William Raber, on Flickr

Here's an interesting link on calculating step size in a focus stack. stacker:docs:tables:macromicrodof [Zerene Stacker]
 
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