Rose of Sharon
Comments: Comparing images from my Canon R5, iPhone 15 Pro, and my "new" Sony XR100V, so far I've found the R5 does much better than the iPhone, which does quite a bit better than the Sony. Therefore, on a recent trip to California, I left the R5 and Sony behind and used just the iPhone. For landscapes, the iPhone was fine, but I really missed being able to do focus stacking on some of the beautiful and unusual flowers that just aren't seen in the Northeast.
Usually I use a good tripod and ball head in taking focus stacks of vegetation. To increase the chances of being able to use my Canon in more places (like trips to California), I've tried making a focus stack hand held.
Here is my first attempt. To me it is good enough to make it worthwhile to take my Canon to more places and leave the tripod behind. To make this, I increased the ISO to 200 which with my usual f/2.8 aperture, yielded 1/800 sec exposures. Usually I have image stabilization off when I use a tripod, but here I turned it on.
Finally, to allow Helicon greater latitude in aligning the images, I increased the adjustment ranges to 10% for horizonatal and vertical, rotation to 2 degrees, and magnification to 5%. This resultant image is a composite of 42 images.
This round’s discussion is now closed! 9 comments posted
Ed Ogle
Nice Shot. I took your finished image and increased the saturation on the red part and then brightened the area around the center of the flower. What do you think of this? Posted: 10/05/2024 01:44:35
Brenda Fishbaugh
I've moved to using my iPhone, too! I just did a three week Europe tour with just my iPhone. It was so fun and freeing. I'm going to take more classes to get even better with my iphone.
This is the first flower image of yours that feels a little "crunchy" and the petals don't appear soft. Would that be something that can be adjusted in your processing?
I found your burgundy center to match a couple of Rose of Sharon trees we have, where I've not seen one with the brighter center that Ed suggested.
The stem blurred and just disappearing is a bit disturbing, I'm not sure if you can show a bit more of the stem, so its not hanging in space?
I do love the white/red/green and a touch of yellow stamen...I think with a few tweeks, it could be even stronger and more beautiful. Posted: 10/07/2024 01:56:37
Robert Schleif
I don't see the crunchiness that you mention. Unfortunately, I don't have the original images of the focus stack to see if the processing changed the texture. Since the stacking program would have used bands from the originals, it seems unlikely that the stacking itself produced the texture you are commenting on. I'll look closely at the processing of the original stacked image.
Yes, burgundy is closer to the color of the blossoms on the bush I photographed than the red in Ed's rendition.
I am beginning to appreciate the value of showing some stem and having it be in focus. Sometimes however, the stem is positioned such that an in-focus shot of the stem does not sufficiently blur some of the background and additional processing steps may be required. Posted: 10/13/2024 14:29:22
Sunil Mehta
As always, your stacked images are exceptionally well done! I'd love to give it a try, but I'm not sure where to begin. I'm not very skilled in working with controlled conditions or using a tripod, but seeing this image of yours without the use of a tripod is encouraging-I'll definitely give it a shot!" Posted: 10/07/2024 03:01:09
Robert Schleif
My journey to my current style and workflow evolved over a period of about five years in many small steps. I began with a special close up lens no longer sold by Canon and went from there. If you have a camera that will automatically generate focus stacks, (like the Canon R5), you are off to a good start. I think a tripod is close to essential. A macro lens is helpful, but not essential at first. Jumping right in with a dedicated stacking program like Helicon is probably possible, although I slowly worked my way up to this program using a few others first and even manually building up a focus stacked image. Posted: 10/13/2024 14:39:23
Sunil Mehta
Thank you Robert.
Appreciate. Posted: 10/13/2024 21:24:59
Jim Hagan
A very nice image. I agree with Ed's suggestion to slightly increase the brightness. In my revision I also increased the sharpness (perhaps too much) and eliminated the white areas in the background. It is amazing to me that you can get so much depth of field with the camera being hand held and also that you can stack 42 hand held images. Posted: 10/12/2024 11:29:20
Robert Schleif
It's not that I had a particularly steady hand, the Helicon software somehow was able to align the images and make the decend composite. Posted: 10/13/2024 14:58:46
