I haven’t done any photography in awhile other than a snap or two out of my window. Yesterday, off to the local botanical garden with a new photo buddy. It was really nice to get outdoors again to take pictures, to sit and look and savor all the details the end of summer brings, from the last of the summer flowers to the turning of the leaves.
First stop here was this little brushy bush with red flowers. I don’t recall the name of the plant, but there were bees everywhere (in case you haven’t figured that out!). I had a 24-200 Z mount lens on my Nikon Z6ii, so I had no real macro lens, but at 200mm, I could keep my distance and wait for a bee. I cropped the photo considerably to show the bee and flower. And then this morning I thought up this rather bad title.
One of the pictures from my walk around the botanical garden here in town. Up at the potting shed, this wooden platform holds containers to be filled with dirt and plants to be nurtured before being planted or sold at the weekly Sunday sales. This is a flower fallen off a nearby tree – don’t ask me what the name of the tree is! – and I thought it was so lovely against the grain of the wood.
After coming home from the botanical garden yesterday, I inspected my own small garden. This is a pink rose with a heavenly scent – but I like it better in B&W as far being a photo!
Focus stacking – also called focal stacking, photo stacking, and who knows what else – is taking a series of images of one object and focusing at a slightly different distance from the previous photo. From there, you merge all the images to create one highly detailed image.
I’ve done this before using a manually focused set up, but after looking things up, it turns out the Nikon Z6ii has a built in focus stacking set up where everything is automated. It doesn’t take very long. I decided to try it out, following instructions on YouTube. They were easy to follow. My parameters, if you are interested, were as follows: 100 images, set apart by “1” in the Nikon menu, and an interval of “1”. What all this means, no idea, but I did it, and in a few minutes I had 100 images. My lens is 50mm at f/8.
Zinnia & Steel Wool
This is what the original stacks looked like after using Zerene software. Zerene is a software I have used years ago, and it works great. It takes a bit of time, but I think a dedicated program helps a lot. Photoshop does focus stacking as well, and so does another program, Helicon, but this requires an annual license or a lifetime license, and comes with various grades of licensure. For me, Zerene is just perfect for what I want to do.
First of all, if you want more detail of the above picture, click on it and enlarge as big as you can get it. You will find the little hairs on the zinnia stem as well as flaws in the photo stacking, but it is worth looking at methinks.
Obviously I did a bit of post production! I had to use the spot fix in LR and On1 to get rid of the line where the 2 pieces of foam board met up. I also had to get rid of spots and splodges. I increased the exposure a bit, upped the whites, blah, blah, blah. Let’s just say it took some time, but made me think that perhaps investing in a light box might be a good idea. I tried to make this look as nice as possible without going nuts and getting picky to the point I was ready for the zoo.
Kris over at Wicked Dark Photography does a lot of outdoor focus stacking of small things, like moss or mushrooms, and her lovely work made me realize there is a lot more potential here than getting nice photos of things to sell on eBay. Kris’s work as a photographer just really appeals to me as she knows a lot about nature, enjoys trees and water and even spiders (which I like outdoors and not enlarged!) and small plants. I look forward to her weekly posts as she is often out on an adventure with which I can travel along, especially on her videos.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 