Lens for handheld focus stacking for indoor orchid exhibition

Try them all at home first to see what you like. My gut says the RF 70-200 f/2.8 will give you the best image quality.    Full electronic  at 20fps would is my guess on the best results as well due to camera shake but you could try the different modes.

Brian D3300 wrote:

Try them all at home first to see what you like. My gut says the RF 70-200 f/2.8 will give you the best image quality. Full electronic at 20fps would is my guess on the best results as well due to camera shake but you could try the different modes.

Focus bracketing always uses full electronic shutter at the fastest available frame rate. If you have a slow shutter speed it won’t run faster than the shutter speed allows.

I would suggest trying it with the 50/1.8 and the 70-200, both are listed as compatible, the choice depending on subject and what distance you are working at. Both will give very good results. You don’t need the widest aperture, better to stop down a bit for improved IQ. Bear in mind you can’t use flash, you need continuous lighting, such as natural light or LED.

I’d pick something with IS that is sharp wide-open. The RF50 STM fails both those requirements.

Depending on how you want to frame the shots, I’d pick the 15-30 or 70-200.

drsnoopy wrote:

Brian D3300 wrote:

Try them all at home first to see what you like. My gut says the RF 70-200 f/2.8 will give you the best image quality. Full electronic at 20fps would is my guess on the best results as well due to camera shake but you could try the different modes.

Focus bracketing always uses full electronic shutter at the fastest available frame rate. If you have a slow shutter speed it won’t run faster than the shutter speed allows.

I would suggest trying it with the 50/1.8 and the 70-200, both are listed as compatible, the choice depending on subject and what distance you are working at. Both will give very good results. You don’t need the widest aperture, better to stop down a bit for improved IQ. Bear in mind you can’t use flash, you need continuous lighting, such as natural light or LED.

Ah cool. I did not know that was the only option since that is all I tried.

Good point. I have used a reflector outside as well as a little rectangular continuous light at times. I can't find my original file but it worked pretty well on this Dahlia:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTJCwLEHZb7/

drsnoopy wrote:

Brian D3300 wrote:

Try them all at home first to see what you like. My gut says the RF 70-200 f/2.8 will give you the best image quality. Full electronic at 20fps would is my guess on the best results as well due to camera shake but you could try the different modes.

Focus bracketing always uses full electronic shutter at the fastest available frame rate. If you have a slow shutter speed it won’t run faster than the shutter speed allows.

I would suggest trying it with the 50/1.8 and the 70-200, both are listed as compatible, the choice depending on subject and what distance you are working at. Both will give very good results. You don’t need the widest aperture, better to stop down a bit for improved IQ. Bear in mind you can’t use flash, you need continuous lighting, such as natural light or LED.

And speaking of lighting, I was playing around with R7 and RF 35mm f1.8 the other day with a Funko thingie (a Green Lantern figurine). After playing around, I found that the stacking worked great at aperture 3.5, for my distance and subject.  I was just using the poor default lighting in my room, and set the iso to 100 (why not?) and let the camera handle the shutter. It set the aperture between 0.5s and 1.3s (I did 3 or 4 stacks) and the camera gave me several nicely stacked results. I shot from a tripod. I can't wait to try this outside as I often do macro against a bridge, so I'll use that to stabilize the camera rather than using a tripod.  Then I'll just need a bug that isn't moving.

koenkooi wrote:

I’d pick something with IS that is sharp wide-open. The RF50 STM fails both those requirements.

Depending on how you want to frame the shots, I’d pick the 15-30 or 70-200.

The OP is using an R5, so lens IS is not necessary. There is no need to use a lens wide open for focus bracketing, in fact it’s best not to use wide open in order to have smoother focus transition between frames. The RF 50/1.8 is beautifully sharp across the frame at f2.8 or f4.

So you could equally well conclude that the RF 50/1.8 succeeds on both counts.

drsnoopy wrote:

koenkooi wrote:

I’d pick something with IS that is sharp wide-open. The RF50 STM fails both those requirements.

Depending on how you want to frame the shots, I’d pick the 15-30 or 70-200.

The OP is using an R5, so lens IS is not necessary. There is no need to use a lens wide open for focus bracketing, in fact it’s best not to use wide open in order to have smoother focus transition between frames. The RF 50/1.8 is beautifully sharp across the frame at f2.8 or f4.

So you could equally well conclude that the RF 50/1.8 succeeds on both counts.

The colors are muddier on the 50 1.8 though compared to the 70-200mm, that's part of my preference to recommend the  70-200.

JoeSchmoe007 wrote:

Brian D3300 wrote:

drsnoopy wrote:

koenkooi wrote:

I’d pick something with IS that is sharp wide-open. The RF50 STM fails both those requirements.

Depending on how you want to frame the shots, I’d pick the 15-30 or 70-200.

The OP is using an R5, so lens IS is not necessary. There is no need to use a lens wide open for focus bracketing, in fact it’s best not to use wide open in order to have smoother focus transition between frames. The RF 50/1.8 is beautifully sharp across the frame at f2.8 or f4.

So you could equally well conclude that the RF 50/1.8 succeeds on both counts.

The colors are muddier on the 50 1.8 though compared to the 70-200mm, that's part of my preference to recommend the 70-200.

I don't disagree about colors but wouldn't 70-200 be significantly more difficult to handheld stable enough for the stacking?

I think the IS paired with the R5 is pretty darn good but I guess that would be something to experiment with.

JoeSchmoe007 wrote:

I am looking for a lens recommendation for handheld focus stacking (stacking will be done in Canon DPP, don't care about in-camera stacking) for indoor orchid exhibition.

I did try focus stacking in the past with RF 24-205 STM but I was using tripod.

I will use R5 and have following lenses available:

RF 50 f/1.8 STM

RF 24-105mm f/4-7.1 is stm

RF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS

RF 15-30 STM IS

Which one would produce the best results? I am thinking RF 50 f/1.8 because it is lightweight and has wide aperture.

Also looking for camera setting recommendation for focus stacking for this scenario.

50mm lens  at f2.8.

You probably already expert in this - orchids can be quite challenging in photostacking due to the detail of the flowers - e.g. parts of flowers / plants in front of other parts so when out of focus in the foreground, this blooms across the background when focussed there.  Helicon Soft I find better than DPP but usually in complex shots end up with some re-touching in helicon then on pixel peeping, using photoshop too.

A tough but very practical question.

I'd test at home, gradually lowering the illumination.

There are several variables at work that all interact: the exposure, MFD, and IBIS. Not to mention maybe relying on some cropping. Still helps to be able to stop down a bit, and you can probably push ISO a ways. And finally, you'd get different looks with different focal lengths too, especially if you need some subject isolation via that choice.

I am also not sure which of those lenses, if any, suffer from focus breathing. Although very skillful movement of the body with fixed focus and some burst shooting vs using camera assisted focus bracketing can work for that. Tough without a support though.

I'm sure we'd love for someone to do a complete series of experiments with examples and let us know

Good luck,