Focus stacked orchid

toomanycanons wrote:

Yes, extremely sharp from front to back of that beautiful orchid.

Is the purpose of focus stacking to render the subject completely focused from front to back but have the background OOF? IOW, would using a real small aperture maybe accomplish the focusing part but the background would be too much in focus?

Depth of field is absolutely tiny at these close distances and great magnifications, so getting an out of focus background is no problem - indeed the problem is getting enough DoF to get the whole of the subject sharp. Apertures of around f8-f11 are often used to avoid the problem of diffraction which can become a problem at smaller apertures (diffraction loses resolution). The focus stacking method consists of a tripod mounted camera often with a focus rail attached to enable the taking of a carefully focused image followed by a minute change of focus further away (or nearer) and another and another etc. Each time a very slight change of focus distance until you have a series of images which are then brought together as one complete and fully sharp image in stacking software. Later editions of Photoshop offer focus stacking but there are several specialist applications too - Zerene stacker is one but expensive.

If you have a special interest in Macro and would like some inspiration may I direct you to   http://1x.com/photos/latest/macro   where you'll find macro images not only technically perfect but also artistic and beautiful.

Vic