Your opinion? More fleabane

[grphotog641]

This time with no focus stacking.
D500 w/ Sigma 105mm, 68mm of tubes, and Raynox 250.
Shot with flash and homemade diffuser
f/20, 1/160s, ISO-400.

 

[Helix_2648]

Hi grphotog641 - sometimes less is more. I'm nor sure if the picture would have the same effect if would render it as a stack. The blurry background is really nice. I like it.

 

[grphotog641]

I'm nor sure if the picture would have the same effect if would render it as a stack.

Thanks, Helix. This past weekend I finished my homemade speedlight diffuser and finally feel like I can shoot in the wild. Without the flash I was having to shoot at really wide apertures and the resulting ultra-narrow DOF made me feel like focus stacking was my only option. This feels really liberating and I'm looking forward to working on some flower shots I took in the garden yesterday.

Now I may need to upgrade my speedlight to one that gives me a bit more control.

 

[Helix_2648]

I prefer to take my stacks without an external flash but I saw a lot of pictures taken with a flash light which are really gorgeous. So I'm thinking about to buy a flash light for myself to use it for my stacks. But I'm not sure which one to buy. The DIY is also a very intersting topic!

At the end focus stacking is the only possible physical solution if you want to get all details of the flower. I won't recommend to use an aperature above f16 to avoid diffraction blur.

Link

 

[grphotog641]

I've been doing my stacking using a static LED worklight and relying on the flicker-reduction on my D500 to deal with the 60Hz flicker (very obvious on my D750 body).
That usually gives me enough light to shoot not-quite wide open, even with the tubes and the Raynox.

But outside, handheld, there was nowhere near enough light for me to get a decent shot without the flash. Good advice on not going to high in f-number. I'll try to remember that.

 

[Shan]

this picture has a dreamy look to it. i like the details in the centre and the dof fall off in the edges. stacking seems too artificial to me sometimes. Great Photo!

 

[Jack]

Great results grphotog641 , have you tried to stack images, as I think you probably could get more in focus on this flower then is now.