To stack or not to stack

John K wrote:

gardenersassistant wrote:

gardenersassistant wrote:

Perhaps a graphic would help at this point.

and later

Here is (once again) the difference that I am seeing.

The same graphic was used after each of these statements. Here is a corrected version of the graphic (It replaces "It used the minimum available f-number..." with "It used the maximum available f-number...")

It looks like the image on the right was taken at a different angle than the one on the left, with the right image being more parallel to the sensor plane which would make it look like it has more depth of field. Also the transition between what's in and out of focus in the image on the left looks really odd.

Here are a pair of images captured under more controlled conditions. I set down a line of tape on a table and mounted a light coloured plastic rule at an angle to the tape and a metal rule perpendicular to the tape, as shown below.

I captured an image with two cameras, placing each camera on the table and using the line of the tape to help me align each camera so it was as best as I could make it head on to the metal rule and therefore at the same angle to the plastic rule. The vertical angle on the scene varied a bit as the cameras and lenses were of different sizes and shapes and needed to be differently supported so as to be able to frame both rules.

Here is an uncropped image captured with a Panasonic FZ330 camera, which has a 1/2.3" sensor, with the f-number set to its maximum f-number of f/8, and with a Raynox 250 on the camera lens.

Here is an uncropped image with the same scene width of 12mm captured with a full frame Sony A7ii with a Meike 60mm macro lens with a 2X teleconverter, a 1.4X teleconverter and 68mm extension tubes. The f-number was set to f/22.

The image captured with the small sensor FZ330 using its maximum f-number of f/8 (and therefore giving the maximum achievable depth of field for that setup) has less depth of field than the image captured with the full frame sensor A7ii.