Advanced Macro
Lets Review
What is Macro? Extreme Close Photography Filling the “Frame” Magnification ratio of 1:1 or greater
Basic Equipment to consider for Macro photography Macro Lenses, Extension Tubes, Tripods,Flash,Ring Flash, Flash Modifiers, triggers and Lights.
Advanced Macro terms to Study 1. DOF or Depth of Field - is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that have acceptably sharp focus. 2. Focus stacking- A process where multiple photos of varying DOF that are combined into one photo 3. Bokeh- Is the visual quality of the out of focus areas in a photographic image, that is determined by lens, focal length, aperture.
Advanced Macro Flash
Advanced Macro Tools Macro Focus Rails
Macro Focus Bellows
Advanced Macro Tools Automated Focus Stacking https://www.cognisys-inc.com
Extra Macro Tools for making Macros easier
Extreme Macro Setups
http-//bugs.adrianthysse.com/
www.cognisys-inc.com
http-//www.photomacrography.net/
Macros can be made with a point and shoot Fuji X 20 focused at 1cm f7.1 thru the glass of a storm door. Smaller sensor cameras usually have a larger DOF, allowing more of the subject to be in focus. Next is a more extreme DIY modified point and shoot setup for capturing snowflakes
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12.1 Megapixel Canon Point and shoot with a Helios 50mm f2 lens reversed and taped on.
Examples of the photos produced with this setup
Alexey Kljatov
https://chaoticmind75.blogspot.ru/
Focus Stacking So what is focus stacking? Why do I need it? Wikipedia Defines it as: Focus stacking (also known as focal plane merging and zstacking or focus blending) is a digital image processing technique which combines multiple images taken at different focus distances to give a resulting image with a greater depth of field (DOF) than any of the individual source images. Focus stacking is often the only way to get the DOF to get an entire macro subject in focus. While not always needed,It is a great technique to know.
Focus Stacking So how do you make a focus stacked image? What do I need to do this? To Make a focus stacked image you need to first determine how much of the subject you need in sharp focus. Start with the section closest to you and move to end point, making small focus adjustments in between. This will yield a number a photos with small slices of sharp focus. These images will be combined in Photoshop, resulting in a macro subject sharp fully in focus. The minimum requirements for this is a stationary subject and stabilized camera, ideally on a tripod.
Focus Stacking So once I have my group of photos what is next? If you are using Lightroom, Go to the filmstrip and select all of your images for your stack. Once selected choose Edit in > Open as Layers in Photoshop. This will open the images in Photoshop without making duplicates of each. You can also just use Photoshop to open & load the images to stack. Go to: File > Scripts >Load files into stack >Find images> select all > open, Check box to auto align layers. Once all the images are loaded to Layers, select and highlight all of the Layers and Go to: Edit> Auto-Blend Layers. Check box for stack Images and Seamless tones and colors and Hit OK. Photoshop will do all the work.
Focus Stacking Demo
Macros Don’t always to be totally in focus
Bokeh backgrounds more interesting
Steve Stephenson Photography stevestephenson.com Steve Stephenson Photography on Facebook @steve_stephenson on Instagram
“Paperclips”
Macro example Setups Canon 6D f16 1/40 100mm, 2 LED lamps for light Clips on a shiny black surface. A piece of poster board was placed in the back to bounce more light to evenly illuminate the clips.
1.5 By kneeling down to the ground, I was able to use the marsh grass as a back drop for the photo. Keeping my DOF as shallow as possible to create bokeh background effect.
2.5 Here is another example.
Here is the set up for the last photo. Two flashes used with a tin foil backdrop lit with a flash with a red gel and a flash disk soft box o the other flash. Canon 6D,f16, ISO 100, 1/180 second.
Monochrome Dandelion
Making use of these Macro Tools
Macro link to check out Thomas Shahan - Great tips and tricks of Macro bug photography https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM80atpL9P_G7_ORlFOzmAg
Phlearn - Here is a couple great Free tutorial on Focus Stacking in Photoshop! https://phlearn.com/tutorial/how-to-do-focus-stacking-in-photoshop/ https://phlearn.com/tutorial/focus-stacking/
LEVON BLISS- Project entitled Microsculpture, is the finest example of Macro bug photography I have ever seen! Go to the site and click watch film. http://microsculpture.net/