Focus stacking doesn't always work

Lord Vetinari

Thought these were interesting- couple of focus stacked shots where the stacking did not quite work.
Brian V.

Spontaneous generation of jumping spiders from climbing beans.



A Picasso style spider

tmlphoto

Interesting "accidents". I like the second one in a absract kind of way.

Higgmeister

Hey Brian,
I like these effects. Just need a few more stacks for a final touch and they're good to go:D. Actually, it almost looks like the shots weren't lined up. I've also had some stacking issues, but nothing this extreem. A little fuzzy here and there, but this was due to my own mistakes.

Chris

Allen

Neat effect. The first one reminds of the movie "Philadelphia Experiment" (I think that was what it was called).
AL

Lord Vetinari

tmlphoto wrote:

Interesting "accidents". I like the second one in a absract kind of way.

Thanks Thomas

Higgmeister wrote:

Hey Brian,
I like these effects. Just need a few more stacks for a final touch and they're good to go:D. Actually, it almost looks like the shots weren't lined up. I've also had some stacking issues, but nothing this extreem. A little fuzzy here and there, but this was due to my own mistakes.
Chris

Thanks Higgmeister.
Didn't expect the first one to work as I actually had two shots of the spider on different sides of the bean- I was sort of hoping the software might focus stack the bean and therefore merge the pictures.
The shots in the second one were not all exactly aligned (by me) when shot as they were handheld, but normally combinez5 seems to cope with this. What I haven't managed to do really with the software yet is any manual intervention, although I have found sometimes double stacking helps with this. ie stack only two shots at a time always with one common one and then stack the results.

Allen wrote:

Neat effect. The first one reminds of the movie "Philadelphia Experiment" (I think that was what it was called).
AL

Thanks Al- I liked the bean behind the eyes in this shot.

Brian V.

Lord Vetinari

Here's one that did work
Focus stacked Wolf spider from 4 shots- challenge was to try and get all the legs in focus- nearly managed it I missed two Knees-lol

Brian V.

BigAl

Those "abstracts" are really cool Brian. I agree with Chris though, stack a few more on #2 and you'll have a really interesting pic.

The wolf spider is also neat, but here I think you should have tweaked your flash setup to light slightly from the side rather than above. It would have probably lessened the highlight on the abdomen.

regards
alan

ps: is your Sigma 105 the DG or the older one? I'm trying to find some comparison on the two as the DG is about $50 more expensive than the other.

Lord Vetinari

BigAl wrote:

Those "abstracts" are really cool Brian. I agree with Chris though, stack a few more on #2 and you'll have a really interesting pic.

The wolf spider is also neat, but here I think you should have tweaked your flash setup to light slightly from the side rather than above. It would have probably lessened the highlight on the abdomen.

regards
alan

ps: is your Sigma 105 the DG or the older one? I'm trying to find some comparison on the two as the DG is about $50 more expensive than the other.

Thanks for the comments Alan, I haven't tried the flash low down yet on my new arrangement.
I actually bought the older 105mm macro (has a gold ring and is non-DG) because it was cheaper and as you can see it works fine. Only risk is that some of the older sigma lenses do not function correctly on the EOS body and return an err99. If this happens it needs to be re-chipped by Sigma. So if you are thinking of the older version, might be safer to try it on your camera body first if you can (mine didn't need re-chipping).
Brian V.

BigAl

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Thanks for the comments Alan, I haven't tried the flash low down yet on my new arrangement.
I actually bought the older 105mm macro (has a gold ring and is non-DG) because it was cheaper and as you can see it works fine. Only risk is that some of the older sigma lenses do not function correctly on the EOS body and return an err99. If this happens it needs to be re-chipped by Sigma. So if you are thinking of the older version, might be safer to try it on your camera body first if you can (mine didn't need re-chipping).
Brian V.

Thanks Brian. I'm really in a quandary now, as here in SA, the Sigma 105DG is about the same price as the Canon 100mm macro and which to go for of those? I agree that you really are getting good results with the older model 105 so I won't be shy about buying it. I'm looking to buy new, so I assume a new "older model" 105 will have the upgraded chip in???

regards
alan

Lord Vetinari

BigAl wrote:

Thanks Brian. I'm really in a quandary now, as here in SA, the Sigma 105DG is about the same price as the Canon 100mm macro and which to go for of those? I agree that you really are getting good results with the older model 105 so I won't be shy about buying it. I'm looking to buy new, so I assume a new "older model" 105 will have the upgraded chip in???

regards
alan

Can only say more than likely. it was the older old lenses that needed re-chipping. As for the canon vs the sigma -from what I've seen the lenses are both great from the macro point of view and I think the canon has internal focusing so it doesn't extend like the sigma does. People even say the Tamron macro lenses are extremely good as well!
Brian V.