Focus stacked orchid

Apsphoto wrote:

Macro wrote:

Beautiful!

How did you determine each focus setting for the stack?

Would you post a single non-stacked image for comparison?

Thank you everyone for the comments, I really do appreciate it.

Macro: I started out with it in manual focus, and zoomed into the center of one of the flower and had focus peaking on, focused on the closest part of the flower to me. Took the shot and then moved the focus ring a little further away while watching the focus peaking areas and made sure there was some overlap, and kept repeating that process until all the images were taken and I had covered the range of focus. The distance from the tip of the flower to the back of the petals and since all the flowers are a little staggered, the distance was about 2 inches. The camera dof, is very small especially at f4 the dof is only about 0.13 inches so with some overlap and to cover the depth of the flowers it took about 11 shots. It is mostly trial and error and with a little practice you can get a feel for what works. I will post a single frame later today. Like I had mentioned the light was soft and going fast so I used f4 to get a fairly low ISO and and still blur the background. Used a tripod, of course. You also have to watch for breezes, it does not take much to get the flowers moving, I usually have to close the windows in the area.

I shoot outside where any air movement makes it more challenging. Did you use depth-of-field preview while focusing?

I use McClamps to reduce swaying. (FM photography photo)