Another Snowflake :)

[GMPhotography]

Here's another snowflake focus merged in AP. Curves and a little desaturation also applied.

 

Snowflake 02- 2017 by Greg Murray, on Flickr

 

and another

 

Snowflake2 02-2017 by Greg Murray, on Flickr

[Kodiak]

•

 

 

The first one for me Greg… delicious! ;)

[Scott Williams]

Really nice. I am going to have to have a go at this. I just have to wait for it to snow!

[GMPhotography]

i want to experiment with stopping my lens down some more. despite being focus merged, they're both a little soft but the second one is worse at full open. the first was at f7.1

[Kodiak]

i want to experiment with stopping my lens down some more. despite being focus merged, they're both a little soft but the second one is worse at full open. the first was at f7.1

 

 

For most lenses, the sweet spot is around ƒ6.3 ~ ƒ10. So at

ƒ7.1, you were not far. 

 

Closer to the smallest ƒ stop (+/- ƒ22), you may gain in

DoF but one loses in sharpness due to diffraction limita-

tions in any lens.

 

Greater aperture (ƒ 2.8 ~ƒ1.2), the bokeh is great but the

same limitations are present. 

 

So, shooting to stack @ +/- ƒ8 is the better idea!

[anon1]

For most lenses, the sweet spot is around ƒ6.3 ~ ƒ10. So at

ƒ7.1, you were not far. 

 

 

Closer to the smallest ƒ stop (+/- ƒ22), you may gain in

DoF but one loses in sharpness due to diffraction limita-

tions in any lens.

 

Greater aperture (ƒ 2.8 ~ƒ1.2), the bokeh is great but the

same limitations are present. 

 

So, shooting to stack @ +/- ƒ8 is the better idea!

It is actually not the same reason for f 20 and f 0.95

 

At higher f stops the light bends at the narrow hole of the aperture and thus resolution is not good

 

At low f stops most of the Glas of the lens is used and imperfections in the whole surface add up to bad results except if you have extremely high quality glass

 

Just take your tripod and shoot every f stop and compare results

 

PS maybe try out freelensing to get a tilt shift look, get a shifted depth of field focus pane so that a snowflake is in focus from front to end although it is not parallel to your lens (might be a bit tricky in macro shots but either take many pictures or build something that helps you)

 

Cheers

[Kodiak]

It is actually not the same reason for f 20 and f 0.95…

 

Right…

 

The purpose of my reply was to alert on possible

consequences when shooting at either end of the

ƒ ring without getting too much into the heavy stuff.

 

Your suggestion to use a Scheimpflug principle geo-

metric rule approach is good too!

[GMPhotography]

Thanks guys. All theory that I understand, but until you test a lens with a particular process AND scene, you cant decide whether or not the limitations are something you can live with for what it adds to the image, or if the limitations simply take too much away and you're better off without.

It's great to say "f7-11 are usually the sharpest parts of the lens" but what if, when focus merging, it's better to have the out of focus areas not so much out of focus? It may be better OVERALL to use a higher f-stop in this circumstance despite the limitations that it has with other applications.

[Kodiak]

… what if, when focus merging, it's better to have the out of focus areas not so much out of focus?

 

Not sure Greg…

 

The purpose (for me) to go for the focus stacking tech-

nique is exactly to get everything in focus which implies

sharpness and DoF. The sharpness is provided by the

sweet spot of the lens and the DoF by the stacking.

 

This example (exercise for my son) of such approach

using a 105 macro lens at ƒ8 and stacking 17 slices: