Thread: Some macro photos

All these images are stacked images.

I did mainly stacked images because I love seeing the hidden structure of things.

Doing stacked images involves taking many images of the same subject at minutely different focal planes and combining them together in special software which preserves only the in-focus detail from each image - then melds it all into one single image. This overcomes the principal problem with macro photography which is the very shallow focal plane (ie typical macro bug photo has head in focus and usually not much else).

To do this the camera is held still, and the focus is not changed, but the subject is drawn closer to the camera in minute increments (usually about 0.2mm for macro) as each image is taken.

I built a desktop photo studio with a stage which could be moved in tiny increments by a turnscrew, while the camera was mounted on a rack and pinion head which allowed precise x/y movements. The desktop studio base and stages were made out of stone, and everything else was built massively to minimize vibration. The camera (Nikon DSLR) was tethered by USB to a PC which had controlling software, allowing me to trigger the camera, make adjustments via the PC - and most importantly to immediately view the image on the monitor. Then its just a matter of taking the photos while turning the turnscrews, viewing and saving the images to the computer, and finally pointing the stacking software at the raw images.

I also had directional UV lights to control the activity of the bug (bugs navigate mainly by UV light) but that never really worked.

This image below is a good example. Its actually a pano of stacked images. Its 2 images across and 2 images deep, each image being a stack of 20 images - so 80 images in total. If the original were printed out at normal resolution it would be several metres across - so the good thing is you can keep zooming in to amazing levels of detail - you can see not just the hairs on the body but the tiny pores from which the hairs emerge.

I found all this technology very interesting, but ultimately it takes a very unusual person to be comfortable with spending hours bent over squinting at minute objects. With my very ordinary eyesight I found myself getting too many headaches and sore eyes - so it was an interesting period but ultimately not right for me.


flowerWasp.jpg


cheers
Arron

Nice photos Arron.
I had no idea that that's how these images are produced. Very interesting.
Thanks.
Pete.

Thanks for telling us how you did it. You are a very talented man.
Cheers Frank.