Here are some shots from the birdfeeder in the backyard. I had my camera outside because an oriole was showing up to J's orange/jelly feeder and they usually don't stick around very long.
Some of the below shots show "frozen" motion of birds, and I picked the best ones that were in focus. Next time I may try to get closer to the feeder, although doing that scares the birds off.
I used the manual focus on my camera plus the burst mode, in which the camera takes 10 shots per second. Burst mode, plus a very fast shutter speed (1/2000 second) can help capture movement and sometimes get some fun shots. I sat in a chair on the patio, about 15 feet away from the feeder. My hope here was to use the camera settings to capture birds flying in to, or away from, the feeders.
In my last post, I linked to the work of other photographers who were using focus stacking to show the magnified details of various objects that aren't normally visible to the naked eye. One image that I liked was the penny with popcorn salt on it. (Original thread with photographer credit; image)
I did my own version of this and here's the result. I don't have the microscope objective that the other photographer used, so I can't get as close up, but I wanted to see how much magnification I could get out of my camera, lens, and lens accessories.
Equipment used: Camera: Olympus E-M1 Mark II
Lens: Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro lens
Extension Tubes: Meike 10mm + 16mm (similar to these)
Magnifying Lens: Raynox DCR-150 attached to lens with step-down rings
Tripod: Crummy one but it worked
The extension tubes extend the lens, giving a magnification side-effect, and the Raynox is basically a magnifying glass at the end of the lens. With the high magnification, the depth of focus was even smaller than the previous example I showed.
Here's a shot from the middle of the stack.
Here's the final image from the stacking software - it's 97 shots stacked. Did you know salt was cubular? I didn't.
Before I took this series of photos, I tried a set with a penny with popcorn salt on it, like the original I'm trying to duplicate. That set of shots didn't turn out well because I bumped the table and moved the penny, but I learned that popcorn salt is actually shaped like tiny popped kernels! (Not really. It's cubes, too.)
I was recently talking to my sister about photography and I brought up the topic of focus stacking. It's hard to explain, so here's a demonstration.
Magnifying for Macro
The world of macro photography is fun - the more space on your camera's sensor you can take up with the image you want to capture, the more detail you can see on your subject. Normal zoom lenses can often do some macro-type work; some are designed to allow you to be close to your subject and still allow the lens to focus. Most typical zooms can't - you have to stand back from your subject in order for the camera to be able to focus.
With specially-designed macro lenses, you can get up close to your subject and magnify it such that details will show up in your images that you could never see with your naked eye.
Focus Stacking Example
Here's a picture of my macro photography setup:
Camera: Olympus E-M1 Mark II
Lens: Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro lens
Tripod: Super cheap old tripod from Best Buy that came free with a camcorder, circa 2003.
Software: Olympus Capture.
Here is a shot of the subjects with normal camera settings - a bolt, Red Cross donor pin, and the ruler portion of steel calipers. The dark base they're on is an old tablet computer.
Olympus Capture
This software allows me to plug the camera into the computer and operate the camera through the software, instead of making changes on the camera itself. Here's a screen snapshot of the application running.
Most of the options shown on the right side would normally be changed on the camera itself, but they can be changed here. On the bottom right are some chevrons (<<<, <<, < and >, >>, >>>) which can be used to tell the camera to zoom in or out a little or a lot at a time. This is the equivalent of my rotating the focus ring on the lens by hand. I use these during the process of taking all the shots that will eventually be stacked.
Getting Started
I started off by focusing the lens on the closest point to the camera and taking a picture. Note how little of the image is in focus (where the arrows are pointing).
The problem with macro lenses, and microscope lenses (objectives) for those who use them, is that magnifying at this level means that not much of your shot will be in focus. It has to do with the physics of light and the way the lens and camera process it. The "depth" of the in-focus portion of the image is referred to as Depth of Field, or Depth of Focus. As you can see, with this lens and camera set up the way they are, there is a very shallow depth of field. Here's a good explanation, if you're interested.
Because it would be great to get a clear, highly-magnified view of this scene, I can't just set my lens at its highest magnification and take a picture, because the depth of focus is so shallow that I'll only get a little bit of the image in focus. This is where focus stacking comes in - stacking involves taking a picture, refocusing the lens to be slightly farther away from the camera, taking another picture, then repeating these steps until the lens is focusing on the very back of the scene, or the lens isn't capable of focusing any father away.
Each of these shots will include small slices that are in focus, and the rest will be out of focus. The "stacking" part is done by software, which can identify which parts of which image is in focus, and combine those in-focus parts with the other in-focus parts of the other images, and then combine them. (How does it do that? I have a vague idea but it's mostly magic.)
Moving the Focus Across the Subject
Let's continue to watch the focus change through the images as the focus is "moved away" from the camera and towards the back of the subjects.
This photo is about half-way through the focus's travels. The parts in focus are indicated. The parts of the first shot above that were in focus are now completely blurry.
The next photo is about 3/4 of the way through. Note that the focus is "moving" towards the back. Anything at a particular distance from the lens is in focus, even if the different objects in the picture are above or below each other.
Here is the final shot; only the very farthest reach of the subject is in focus.
Stacking the Images
Now that we have these shots, we can load them into Zerene Stacker or Adobe Photoshop to be stacked. The image below was created by Zerene Stacker, which is named for the one thing it does really well (and better than Photoshop): focus stacking.
The in-focus parts of each image were "found" by the software and included into the resulting image. You can see all the little imperfections of the steel in the bolt, the tiny marks on the face of the Red Cross pin, and the other flaws that are not visible without magnification.
Watching the Focus Move
I made a short video showing the progression of the focus - there are about 40 images total. This helps visualize the different steps.
Stacking Non-macro shots
It's possible to stack non-macro shots. It can be done with landscape photography, product photography for advertisements, and many other place - anywhere you can use a tripod to control the framing of the image you're taking. The idea is the same - the in-focus parts of the images you stack will be blended with the others.
More Examples of Macro and Stacked Images
Here are a few links to stacked and macro images on the Photomacrography website, where amateurs and professionals alike gather to show off their work, learn from others, and trade ideas. Some of these images were made with microscope objectives, which exhibit a tiny depth of field as a tradeoff for the high magnification they provide.
Dissolving sutures macro shots. This page not only discusses the appearance of real-life sutures, but makes a conjecture about how they are tied by a surgeon. Then a surgeon who is also a photographer weighs in, and the photographer eventually presents the images to the surgeon who performed the operation. Photography, knots, surgery - all in one place!
Popcorn salt on top of a penny, 330 shots in a stack. Neat! Click here for the discussion, and here for the picture.
Robber fly parts, a few different stacks are shown. I believe this was done with a microscope objective, attached to the camera with other lenses or adapters.
This is a small sample of what's on the forums, you can look around there to see other images of very small things, see people's setups, and so on.
Some photos from Lillie Park South in Ann Arbor, and in my own backyard. Enjoy!
Pilings for a boardwalk/bridge that used to cross the water here. Some photos on this blog from last year show a green heron wandering along the boardwalk.
This photo is taken from the location where the other end of the bridge used to be, pointing back to the pilings in the previous photo.
I've seen better Goose V shapes...
I checked, and this does include hot dogs.
The morning reflections were nice on the big pond when I was there. I wish there were more fall colors here.
There is a bat house at the end of this path. I didn't check to see if there were any bats in it.
This tree in the park near the woods was the most colorful tree I found at the park, and I got a shot of it to show it my appreciation.
Backyard birches - the ever-peeling bark on these enhance the "falling leaves" look of autumn.
A birch in our backyard, and a few more colorful leaves from the neighbor's tree.
We've been to Frankfort, MI and the surrounding area many times in the summer, and J and I headed up last week to see what's different in the fall.
We took a detour through Manistee and walked along the river and visited some shops. It was a bit cold and rainy, so we didn't stay long. We stopped at at the Arcadia Overlook on our way from Manistee to Frankfort.
During our day out touring the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, we enjoyed some rain and sunny weather, often together.
We hiked to the top of the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan at Pyramid Point, where we saw a complete rainbow - both ends and the entire arc were visible. I wasn't able to get a picture of it, because the lens on my camera wasn't wide enough to capture the whole thing. We also drove the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, which we had driven by many times in the past, but had never visited.
The leaves were just starting to change in most places, so we didn't get the full-color treatment we were hoping for when we planned the trip a few months ago. But the views and cold air were new and refreshing.
On the day we were leaving Frankfort, there was a small parade through town and we stayed to watch and hit some Frankfort shops before heading home.
The snow fences are one difference between Frankfort in July and October.
At the Pyramid Point trailhead, there's a sign that let's you know what you should or shouldn't do. I find it a bit ambiguous - for example, if a pet is on a snowmobile, is that OK? If I need to take a nap under the trees to rest from a long hike, is that considered camping?
The "left" part of the full rainbow. The fixed focal-length lens I had on my camera could get this much in one shot...
Here's the "right" part of the rainbow. If you put the pictures next to each other and blur your eyes, you can see the whole thing.
You will not be the least bit surprised to know that people were indeed going way down towards the bottom. Sadly, we didn't hear any cries for help. Maybe next time.
At the parade, the "pet costume" section featured this human dressed as a hamburger, leading some "french fry" dogs. She didn't have any ketchup, although her bun hat does appear to be sesame seed, which helps.
Uncle Spokes the Clown displayed whimsy and expert bike navigation as he greeted his fans. At the beginning of the parade, he had seven other clowns in his basket, who exited in the classic "Volkswagen" manner.
There's a lot to see here. Fortunately, this float remained parked in town for a while after the parade so we could read everything. There were no prizes for floats that I'm aware of, but if there were, this would be up for "Most Thorough".
An evening picture at the pier. The man on the pier has several fishing lines in the water, and there were some pretty significant waves.
The obligatory sunset photo. Note all the benches lined up on the beach, and the snow fences ready to be rolled out. The benches are normally spread out over the beach, but they are collected before winter and stored together.
So many different types of animals enjoy the hummingbird feeder that I sometimes wonder if the hummingbirds are getting a little put off.
This woodpecker goes to the hummingbird feeder, then the suet feeder, then back to the hummingbird feeder.
A bald-faced hornet. Don't fall in! (Other bees have, in fact, fallen in, and they can't get out.)
A hummingbird sticks its tongue out at the camera. It's like when your kids are at that age that they won't smile nicely for a picture.
Nothing quenches a hummingbird's thirst like sugar water that's been out in the sun for days.
This furry creature was spending some time in the same tree as the feeder, and I got some shots of it because it was posing so cutely.
This scary but cool spider lives in the shrubs in the front of the house. I've been watching it for the last several weeks. When it suddenly moved once, I may have screamed a little.
A Hornet Story
An interesting story about the bald-faced hornet: I was watching this hornet go back and forth to the hummingbird feeder, and after I took a few photos of it, I went online to look up to see what kind of bee/wasp/hornet it was. I discovered that these hornets are pretty gentle and tend not to attack people, like some other hornets do.
The next morning after the picture above was taken, I received an email from my next-door neighbor, informing me that there was a large bees nest in one of my trees, near the sidewalk and street. The light bulb went on in my head: I bet this is the bald-faced hornet's nest. And yes, it was.
Normally I would have just sprayed the heck out of the nest with a can of Raid, but I didn't want to make things worse or cause further problems, or just make them angry, given that dozens of people each day walk within 5 feet of the tree, and there are kids who play nearby. So I called a service who took care of it, and even hauled the nest away when they were done. If it had been more isolated, I probably would have left it alone until the cold weather, but I didn't want someone to get stung.
We have a few hummingbirds that are regular visitors to the backyard feeder.
A wide aperture doomed some of these hummingbird bodies to not be completely in focus, and I'll work on that next time. I was aware that I was shooting wide open, and knew this might happen, but for some of the shots, I needed the light to get a faster shutter speed. It's all about tradeoffs. (See the Wikipedia article on "depth of field" for more information on how aperture impacts how much of a subject is in focus.)
All images were taken with an Olympus E-M1 Mark II with the 60mm f/2.8 lens. The camera was on a tripod between 2-3 feet from the feeder, and I tripped the shutter with my phone, which was connected via a wi-fi signal to the camera.
