Beacon Camera Club

Today I played around with some close ups (not strictly close enough to count as macro) using in-camera focus stacking. For a first attempt, I was quite pleased with the result. It was straight daylight, with no extra lighting on the background or the bee itself. It even works handheld, though it is easier to avoid ghosting if on a tripod.

That's pretty impressive and especially for a hand held image.

How many exposures were necessary to get that depth of field?

Cheers Bill

Sorry, I must have been careless in my wording. It is possible to do this handheld, but this one was on a tripod. If you stack images in camera automatically, it takes 8 images. The only control you have is over aperture and how much it adjusts the focus between images.

Very clever stuff Roger.
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That is, what the Olympus software engineers do is clever stuff. The user doesn't have to know anything.

Nice image and would make an interesting topic for a session of the Wildlife and Nature group. What do you think?
Simon

Is it wildlife, or does wildlife have to be alive? I suppose it is still nature. Doing macro shots of natural objects could be an interesting topic, though for me the fun part of the exercise was turning scraps of junk (glass from a broken picture frame and odd bits of wood) into a table on which to place the bee. I should try it again with a light on the background, and also follow Beats's advice to do it by physically moving the camera between shots instead of letting the camera refocus, and using a lens that can focus closer, though it is a lot easier focusing on the nearest point, pressing the button and letting the camera do the rest.

If anyone plans to get into wildlife or nature photography, they should refer to the rules and regulations of the competitions. they allow very little manipulation to the images.

So focus stacking cannot be wildlife, even if subject matter were to be eligible?

In my previous post I was pointing out to the newer members to the wildlife section who may not know,that there are rules and regulations to wildlife and nature photography. In answer to your question if you or anyone would like to know the updated rules, they can find them on "Definition of nature and wildlife in competitions".

From looking at some of the Nature and Wildlife photography competition rules, I have found a few that say that multiple exposure techniques are permitted if they are carried out in camera. I assume focus stacking carried out in camera falls within this category. However, you also need to be aware of the fact that some also say that the final image and the RAW file should be recognisably the same, which is no good if the in camera processing uses jpegs. The rules do vary between competitions, so it is really a case of reading the rules for each competition you enter very carefully. I think within camera focus stacking or virtually any post processing is allowed in the Beacon Nature Comp, so at least you can enter focus stacked images in our own Club competition, although I stand to be corrected on that one.

There are three rules I always follow in photography
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2
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Cheers
Greg