Macro and Focus Stacking

Macro1 Macro2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These shots came from and session trying out different macro techniques. They were all taken with the Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens. The lighting was a small Monfroto LED video light. Shooting at f16 to try and get maximum depth of field and trying different lighting positions.

 

The feature shot and the one below were created using a focus stacking technique. Focus stacking is taking several frames of the same subject and all the same settings but you change the focus point with each frame.

I then loaded the shots into Lightroom and made a few changes to one frame to get the desired look. I then applied those settings to the other frames so that they all looked the same. The next step was to select them all and load them into Photoshop by choosing the Edit in option and load as layers.

In Photoshop you leave all layers selected and go to the edit menu. Select auto blend layers and then select the blend option to stack images. Photoshop will then process the layers and expose the areas of each layer that are in focus. Finally flatten the layers into one and save the final image.

The final image is a macro shot with a vast depth of field.
Macro4