A Challenge to Focus Stacking

Because depth of field is proportional to distance from camera to subject squared, I often match focus stacking just by moving away from the subject and cropping.

Here is a challenge:

Post a photo in this thread of a common subject like a coin or a key that you made with focus stacking. Then I'll try to match it with a single photo. I may not succeed, but it will be interesting to see how close I come.

Alan

AeroPhotographer said:

Because depth of field is proportional to distance from camera to subject squared, I often match focus stacking just by moving away from the subject and cropping.

Here is a challenge:

Post a photo in this thread of a common subject like a coin or a key that you made with focus stacking. Then I'll try to match it with a single photo. I may not succeed, but it will be interesting to see how close I come.

Alan

Click to expand...

I think many would agree that lower magnification stacking has a serious law of diminishing returns but many poster do well stacking > 1 x.

I don't want to post other's post but if one searches the forum one finds some pretty impressive stacks > 1 X .

It's not my preference but just like a 1 iron - some people can hit it pretty well.

The stand off MO works well on the low end of mag but the high end detail will be challenging to duplicate.

Here is one slightly below 1:1 try something like this on stand off - see how it goes:







Best Regards, Rodger
Save Lives - Be an Organ or Stem Cell Donor.
Quaecumque vera

One of the advantages of stacking is control of the final DOF. If you shoot a relatively long stack set -- one that ends with photos with a focus point farther away than you really want, then you can effectively choose your post-stack DOF by leaving some of the photos out of stack when you merge them.

Rodger in Edmonton said:

AeroPhotographer said:

Because depth of field is proportional to distance from camera to subject squared, I often match focus stacking just by moving away from the subject and cropping.

Here is a challenge:

Post a photo in this thread of a common subject like a coin or a key that you made with focus stacking. Then I'll try to match it with a single photo. I may not succeed, but it will be interesting to see how close I come.

Alan

Click to expand...

I think many would agree that lower magnification stacking has a serious law of diminishing returns but many poster do well stacking > 1 x.

I don't want to post other's post but if one searches the forum one finds some pretty impressive stacks > 1 X .

It's not my preference but just like a 1 iron - some people can hit it pretty well.

The stand off MO works well on the low end of mag but the high end detail will be challenging to duplicate.

Here is one slightly below 1:1 try something like this on stand off - see how it goes:

Best Regards, Rodger
Save Lives - Be an Organ or Stem Cell Donor.
Quaecumque vera

Click to expand...

Thank you Rodger.

What is the approximate width covered by this image?

What is the description of the subject, so I can try to find one?

I had asked for common items that are easy to find, like a key or coin.

Regards,

Alan

AeroPhotographer said:

Rodger in Edmonton said:

AeroPhotographer said:

Because depth of field is proportional to distance from camera to subject squared, I often match focus stacking just by moving away from the subject and cropping.

Here is a challenge:

Post a photo in this thread of a common subject like a coin or a key that you made with focus stacking. Then I'll try to match it with a single photo. I may not succeed, but it will be interesting to see how close I come.

Alan

Click to expand...

I think many would agree that lower magnification stacking has a serious law of diminishing returns but many poster do well stacking > 1 x.

I don't want to post other's post but if one searches the forum one finds some pretty impressive stacks > 1 X .

It's not my preference but just like a 1 iron - some people can hit it pretty well.

The stand off MO works well on the low end of mag but the high end detail will be challenging to duplicate.

Here is one slightly below 1:1 try something like this on stand off - see how it goes:

Best Regards, Rodger
Save Lives - Be an Organ or Stem Cell Donor.
Quaecumque vera

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

What is the approximate width covered by this image?

What is the description of the subject, so I can try to find one?

I had asked for common items that are easy to find, like a key or coin.

Regards,

Alan

AeroPhotographer said:

Thank you Rodger.

Click to expand...

Mea culpa - its a common aster from the super market the floret center is about 1 " in diameter - here is a 29 image stack of a 1.5 " Morgan dollar - I don't have a rail so this is essentially done on a tripod with hand focus guessing on each slice so its with " bear skins & stone knives" as Spock says - if someone has a rail please chime in with a better image.



Its at F 16 close but not 1 : 1 to bite the entire axis of the coin but at least gives you a start point.

It would be best at F 5.6 but w/o a rail It will be too hard to guesstimate by hand for me

I dodged and burned it a bit and sharpened 30 % halftone in NIK.
--
Best Regards, Rodger
Save Lives - Be an Organ or Stem Cell Donor.
Quaecumque vera

Here's mine. Sony A6400 with 18-135 kit lens at f16.

I wish I had a coin just like yours, which has deeper relief.

Yes - even try a coin on good condition since we know the size, try a quarter

One has to play with the lighting - side lighting will pop the relief more.

I played with these concepts quite a bit a few years ago , specifically with coins , I found the best results for coins absent a rail was a single shot at an angle with a larger soft box, I used tissue on a lamp - slightly oblique angle to the coin surface and the coin with a slight tilt from the horizontal vs the lens , distance from sensor to subject +/- 70 - 80 cm.

If I had a rail _ would give the them a Hail Mary DOF at 1:1 on a heavy angle but w/ o a precision instrument to move the lens I found it too hard.

BTW - there is a guy around here - I think he is mawatt or maywatt - he has posted 1000 shot stacks of microchips that are out of this world - and others have done stellar work with flies - these are single shots.





--
Best Regards, Rodger
Save Lives - Be an Organ or Stem Cell Donor.
Quaecumque vera

My goal was to show that surprisingly deep depth of field is achievable without stacking, if you shoot from a greater distance. That's because depth of field is proportional to distance squared. So double your distance and you quadruple your depth of field.

However my image is only 945 pixels wide, which is 30% of yours. But 945 pixels does quite well in many places.

Alan

AeroPhotographer said:

My goal was to show that surprisingly deep depth of field is achievable without stacking, if you shoot from a greater distance. That's because depth of field is proportional to distance squared. So double your distance and you quadruple your depth of field.

Click to expand...

Hey Alan,

I get around stacking by being careful about where I place the area of acceptable focus. I will chose something in the frame, like a butterfly's proboscis, and while keeping that area in focus I twist my wrist to "bend" the focus where I think it needs to be. In this case I twisted the camera to the left and up:

[IMG width="400px" alt="Tech Specs: Canon 80D (F11, 1/250, ISO 100) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (set to 4x) + a diffused MT-26EX-RT with a Kaiser adjustable flash shoe on the "A" head (the key), E-TTL metering, -1/3 FEC). This is a single, uncropped, frame taken hand held. In post I used Topaz Sharpen AI and Clarity in that order."] Tech Specs: Canon 80D (F11, 1/250, ISO 100) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (set to 4x) + a diffused MT-26EX-RT with a Kaiser adjustable flash shoe on the "A" head (the key), E-TTL metering, -1/3 FEC). This is a single, uncropped, frame taken hand held. In post I used Topaz Sharpen AI and Clarity in that order.

Granted I do benefit by the crop of my sensor, but I never crop my images in post (preferring to do all of the framing and composition with the camera).

One thing to note is that cropping, no matter how you do it, does not change the magnification of an image. Magnification, with respect to photography, is determined by how the subject is being projected onto the image plane (film or digital) and is locked in when the shutter is pressed. Anything that is done, after the shot has been taken, to make the subject look larger in the frame is called an enlargement and does not change the magnification. Creating an enlargement will not reveal any additional detail that was not already in the image, but increasing the magnification that the shot was taken at can

--
Also known as Dalantech
My Book: http://nocroppingzone.blogspot.com/2010/01/extreme-macro-art-of-patience.html
My Blog: http://www.extrememacro.com
My gallery: http://www.johnkimbler.com
Macro Tutorials: http://dalantech.deviantart.com/gallery/4122501/Tutorials
Always minimal post processing and no cropping -unless you count the viewfinder...

AeroPhotographer said:

My goal was to show that surprisingly deep depth of field is achievable without stacking, if you shoot from a greater distance. That's because depth of field is proportional to distance squared. So double your distance and you quadruple your depth of field.

Click to expand...

But you lose detail from the cropping. Here are some comparisons between a focus stack at f/3.5 versus cropped single images at f/11, f/16 and f/22.

Here is a comparison of the field of view for the stack, on the left, and one of the single images, on the right.



Here is a comparison to show the depth of field as between the uncropped focus stack at the top left and the three single images cropped to match the field of view of the stack. (f/22 top right, f/16 bottom left, f/11 bottom right.)



Here is the same comparison, but at 50% for the cropped single images and at 27% for the focus stack to match the fields of view.



Here is the comparison at 100% for the cropped single images and at 53% for the focus stack.



In this case the focus stack has greater depth of field than the f/22 single capture and better detail across the whole in-focus range than the f/11 single capture has in its best in focus range.

You can use post processing to get as much as you can out of single images, but there are limits to how far you can get with that and how large an image you can produce with image quality that is sufficient for your needs.

However, with stacking there are practicalities to consider, especially with live subjects in their natural environment, which may present difficulties for stacking such as moving around, parts of them moving and/or being on something that is moving around in the breeze. They may also be located in an awkward to get at position for which single shots are practical but multiple shots suitable for focus stacking are not.

There are therefore trade-offs to explore to find what combination of magnification, aperture, cropping, stacking and processing best fit your preferences for the look of your images and the nature of your subject matter.

There are people who use stacking successfully for live subjects in the field. Using huge numbers of captures for a stack is obviously not being to be practical much of the time for live subjects in the field, but good results can be obtained with just a few images for a stack, as few as two sometimes, including hand-held.

My own preference has been to stick with single captures, use small apertures and use strong post processing, with varying amounts of cropping depending on composition, to produce images that are relatively small at 1300 pixels high.

I typically shoot at f/45 on full frame, which produces effective f-numbers of around f/56 to f/135 for the magnifications I use, and equivalent f-numbers on other formats. This is the sort of images I end up with.

AeroPhotographer said:

However my image is only 945 pixels wide, which is 30% of yours. But 945 pixels does quite well in many places.

Alan

Click to expand...

--
Nick
Flickr image collections http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/collections/
Blog
Summary of photo activity since 2007 https://fliesandflowers.blogspot.com/2019/01/when-i-retired-in-2006-i-had-it-in-mind.html

AeroPhotographer said:

My goal was to show that surprisingly deep depth of field is achievable without stacking, if you shoot from a greater distance. That's because depth of field is proportional to distance squared. So double your distance and you quadruple your depth of field.

However my image is only 945 pixels wide, which is 30% of yours. But 945 pixels does quite well in many places.

Alan

Click to expand...

Indeed it is yet such a method make high magnification of detail a challenge - Nick " the gardener assistant has also wrote on this.

All other things equal, done properly the big stack will outperform the stand off modus operandi on fine detail + high DOF but done improperly IMHO it leaves too many artifacts

the chip guys name is " mawyatt" search for " Some Silicon Chip Images"

As image size and thus fine detail is proportional to distance - its tougherduplicate from afar.

--

Best Regards, Rodger
Save Lives - Be an Organ or Stem Cell Donor.
Quaecumque vera

Thanks for the contribution Nick - the Yellow Jacket shots are my faves of all time - love the contrast on the pink/red - and have not seen the snail before - deadly!

There are some simple basic principles that control the possibilities.

Depth of field and diffraction are both determined by the numerical aperture, i. e. the angle subtended by the lens aperture, seen from the subject. Small aperture, large depth of field; large aperture, small depth of field.

You can narrow the angle either by stopping down the aperture or moving the camera back. The effect on depth of field and diffraction are exactly the same for both alternatives.

The total effect is not the same, however, and either method has advantages and disadvantages. If you stop down, you need to increase the exposure time, add light, or increase the ISO setting. If you move the camera back, you will have fewer pixels on the subject, and may lose detail for that reason. The perspective is set by the position of the aperture, so the perspective will change. Likewise, the blur will be different for objects in the distant background or very near foreground.

Because depth of field and diffraction are both controlled by the same angle, increased depth of field is always accompanied by increased diffraction. You cannot escape that problem with any combination of aperture control or camera position. The only way to beat it is with composite photographs.

I completely agree that stacking is superior. In the original post, I wrote,

"I may not succeed [in matching a stack], but it will be interesting to see how close I come."

I also wanted to point out that DOF is proportional to distance squared.

Alan

AeroPhotographer said:

I completely agree that stacking is superior. In the original post, I wrote,

"I may not succeed [in matching a stack], but it will be interesting to see how close I come."

I also wanted to point out that DOF is proportional to distance squared.

Alan

Click to expand...

Yes you did, and you were right. I just pointed out the principles involved.

I found a cleaner silver dollar lurking in my sock drawer.

I also tried moving closer and found that I can squeak out a shot twice as wide (in pixels) as the prior shot.

Repeating, I know this isn't as good as stacking, but it demonstrates deeper depth of field in a single shot, by moving away from the subject.




Single frame with A6400 and 18-135 kit lens

AeroPhotographer said:

I found a cleaner silver dollar lurking in my sock drawer.

I also tried moving closer and found that I can squeak out a shot twice as wide (in pixels) as the prior shot.

Repeating, I know this isn't as good as stacking, but it demonstrates deeper depth of field in a single shot, by moving away from the subject.

Single frame with A6400 and 18-135 kit lens

Click to expand...

I like this image , a much better coin - the pic would work very well for many uses esp editorial - BTW? mine is 1890.





--
Best Regards, Rodger
Save Lives - Be an Organ or Stem Cell Donor.
Quaecumque vera

AeroPhotographer said:

I completely agree that stacking is superior.

Alan

Click to expand...

For absolute image detail, sure. But no one views images at 100% pixels unless they are pixel peeping. Everyone "consumes" images edge to edge. So absolute image sharpness is, IMHO, a false metric that has nothing to do with image quality. John Q. Public is looking for something to save to a device as wallpaper, or to print large and hang on the wall...

[IMG width="400px" alt="Tech Specs: Canon 80D (F11, 1/125, ISO 200) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (set to over 2x) + a diffused MT-26EX-RT with a Kaiser adjustable flash shoe on the "A" head (the key), E-TTL metering, -1/3 FEC). This is a single, uncropped, frame taken hand held. In post I used Topaz Sharpen AI and Clarity in that order. ISO and shutter set to expose for the natural light in the background."] Tech Specs: Canon 80D (F11, 1/125, ISO 200) + a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens (set to over 2x) + a diffused MT-26EX-RT with a Kaiser adjustable flash shoe on the "A" head (the key), E-TTL metering, -1/3 FEC). This is a single, uncropped, frame taken hand held. In post I used Topaz Sharpen AI and Clarity in that order. ISO and shutter set to expose for the natural light in the background.

--
Also known as Dalantech
My Book: http://nocroppingzone.blogspot.com/2010/01/extreme-macro-art-of-patience.html
My Blog: http://www.extrememacro.com
My gallery: http://www.johnkimbler.com
Macro Tutorials: http://dalantech.deviantart.com/gallery/4122501/Tutorials
Always minimal post processing and no cropping -unless you count the viewfinder...

Rodger in Edmonton said:

Thanks for the contribution Nick - the Yellow Jacket shots are my faves of all time - love the contrast on the pink/red

Click to expand...

That was from the second time in four or five years that I got lucky with a target-rich carrion environment with many wasps.

Rodger in Edmonton said:

- and have not seen the snail before - deadly!

Click to expand...

:-D Thanks Rodger. That is one of a 26-image snail in motion sequence from a set (here) with seven sequences comprising 120 images where I followed subjects as they moved around. The snail was very much the largest of them, smaller ones including two aphids, a springtail and a barkfly. Relevant to the thread subjects of stacking versus single shots, magnification, cropping and apertures, they were all unstackable because of continuous subject motion, at higher than 1:1 magnification (apart perhaps from some of the snail shots), used f/45 nominal (up to f/135 or so effective) and had modest crops for composition rather than deeper crops for "crop for DOF".

--
Nick
Flickr image collections http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/collections/
Blog
https://fliesandflowersetc-ramblings.blogspot.com/
Summary of photo activity since 2007 https://fliesandflowers.blogspot.com/2019/01/when-i-retired-in-2006-i-had-it-in-mind.html

Here's a 23x1/13 Stack shot with my Pentax K-1 and 100mm f/2.8 macro @ f/2.8 and While I think this could be done in a single shot, it wouldn't have the resolution that this one does.