Want critique Tiny seashell and reflection

[Baenki]

I did another focus stack, this time also trying to capture the reflection of my subject in a mirror. Todays subject is a tiny seashell I stole from the table decorations of my sisters graduation party.

I measured the shell at about 6mm in length, which gives me an estimated focus depth of around 3mm from front to back, when considering the positioning in the photo. The stack is made of 226 pictures which would give each photo a stepping size of around 13 micrometres. It's actually pretty impressive to be able to achieve such a fine resolution and precision with out of the box end consumer technology, if you think about it.

Post processing was done in Capture One and Affinity Photo as always.

 

[nataliaflejszar&Photo]

Hallo Baenki
The picture looks great, nice sharpness on the shale. Good job

 

[Jack]

Hi Baenki , I can see your EXIF, but when zoomed the photo there are some noise presented. Probably because has been stacked, I can't say much more here as I never tried stacking. But I'm sure rcorteschile or Helix_2648 can add more .

By the way, the effect has been edited , or you had mirror under the subject ?

 

[Baenki]

Jack it's a mirror under the subject.

 

[Jack]

Jack it's a mirror under the subject.

I thought you added the effect while processing the photo. I love the results. I would like to see how you do that with jewelleries.

 

[Baenki]

Jack it's a small square mirror. One thing I did with the reflection in post processing is adding a gradient lowering exposure towards the bottom. For the fading effect. I'll take a picture if the setup when I do it again.

 

[rcorteschile]

Nice stack. However, in my opinion, maybe you could achieve similar results with fewer images, considering the size of the shell. Take a look to http://extreme-macro.co.uk/.

 

[Baenki]

rcorteschile Thank you. I probably could, but as I'm using bracketing with my camera I don't know what actual step size my lens is doing when setting different steps in camera. Its just +1 to +10. I know extreme-macro's step size calculator and for my setup it gives me a safe step of 0.126mm but I don't know which in camera setting would give me that step. Is there a plus of using less pictures and bigger stesp except time saving? My camera can shoot via electronic shutter, so degradation of the shutter isn't a concern.

 

[Helix_2648]

I've the same funtion in my camera. Normally I use 3-steps with f/5 to f/8 but for smaller subjects I use 2-step setting with f/8. There doesn't exist an universale table for this as the different subjects and settings are too complex. So it's more or less try and error.

Your picture looks indeed very good and I've a similar glass plate for the reflection. I painted it from below in our paint shop from my factory where I work for. I used it often for minerals in the past to get such great looking reflections.

 

[rcorteschile]

rcorteschile Thank you. I probably could, but as I'm using bracketing with my camera I don't know what actual step size my lens is doing when setting different steps in camera. Its just +1 to +10. I know extreme-macro's step size calculator and for my setup it gives me a safe step of 0.126mm but I don't know which in camera setting would give me that step. Is there a plus of using less pictures and bigger stesp except time saving? My camera can shoot via electronic shutter, so degradation of the shutter isn't a concern.

I thought you used a manual or an automated rail. If your camera has that, great!