Another Sunflower Photo
Sunflower season in Port Townsend
K planted a variety of different sunflowers, both at home and in the community garden we belong to. The flowers fascinate me and nudged me over the edge into buying a focusing rail.
When you take pictures of things from very close, only a small part of the image is in focus. With a process called focus stacking, it’s possible to combine multiple photos and use only the section of each picture that is in focus. A focusing rail makes that much easier. It slides the camera forward or backward, so a different part of the subject is in focus in each shot. The shift is done by turning a dial. With the tiny distances involved, it’s very difficult to move the camera and tripod in the same plane and evenly. This flower picture is made up of 12 photos merged together. Each image was taken 4 mm (about 5/32 of an inch) closer to the flower than the last.
September 27th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Very nice. I was looking at a focusing rail last week on the net. I think my macro images are OK. I need to learn my extension tubes before I spend the money on more toys !
December 22nd, 2011 at 5:06 am
Enilghtnineg the world, one helpful article at a time.