Focus stacking: experimenting is learning

Saturday 7 November 2020, 14:28 by Juliette Gribnau | 5,229 views | 14 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Every photographer will know that learning is often a long road of trying and practising. In this report, I take you from beginning to end through an experiment to photograph small slime moulds, from a species I have not yet identified, found on a tree trunk.

On an old, rotting tree trunk

During one of my trips through the woods, I often pass an old fallen tree trunk that has been rotting away for several years. All sorts of things grow on it: mushrooms, fungi and mosses. This time I discovered small blue and white balls, which I suspected were slime moulds.

With a small pocket knife, I cut off a little piece and took it home to examine it and, if possible, photograph it properly. To be clear, each ball is about the size of the ball in a ballpoint pen.

My living room as a studio

As an amateur photographer, I do not have the facilities of a professional studio, with all its conveniences, but I got to work in my living room. I set up two table lamps on a low table, sitting on the pouffe, to provide some light.

Equipment

1. A tripod
Indoors, I can manage with a tripod, although I am not very good with it.

2. A rail mounted on the tripod, which allows you to move the camera forwards or backwards in very small steps once it has been placed on the rail.

3. The camera: I use the Olympus M5 mark3, with the 60mm macro lens.

4. Extension tubes: I used two Meike extension tubes, the 10mm and the 16mm.

5. A macro conversion lens. I used the Mcon-40, a lens dating from the old camera era, a predecessor of olympus.

6. And above all: limitless patience

7. Software for stacking many photos. I use Helicon focus for this.

Getting started

First I had to find a good position for the small piece of moss with the blue and white dots. Preferably at a height that allowed me to see clearly through the camera what I was doing. So that is what I did.

And then the camera settings... first turn on both table lamps and point them at the piece of moss, then half-press the shutter to see how much light there is.

I choose an ISO of 400, as there seems to be enough light. The aperture can be small, because I want to make a series of 500 photos using focus bracketing. I let the camera choose the shutter speed, and as long as it does not drop below 1/5s, I can sit through the whole series.

I set the first focus manually as much as possible on the foremost point, then move it a fraction forwards for safety, and the first series begins.

I hardly dare move, because the floor in my living room is laminate, so the slightest movement makes the tripod, and therefore the camera, move. With this kind of precision work, that is enough to make one of the photos differ so much that the whole series can no longer be merged properly.

First time merging the series

Once I have transferred the whole series to the computer, I can load them all into Helicon focus and do very little else.

It takes some time, but eventually you have a merged photo... which is very disappointing.

The programme indicated that there was too great a difference in exposure. I learn my first lesson: when the weather is half cloudy and half sunny, I have to close the curtains because that creates too much difference in the exposure.

Apart from that, I am rather disappointed by the colours. The green of the moss looks almost orange.

Searching, puzzling and thinking. What could be the reason?

My second lesson: I still had the white balance set to 'cloudy'. In this situation, I would be better off choosing 'tungsten'.

The poor photo below is of another piece of moss with blue and white balls, but this photo shows best that the photo was taken with the wrong exposure.

Another attempt

First I focused again right on the foremost point, then moved it a little further forwards,
as in the photo below.

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