Focus stacking a spider

[Recty]

I've always liked focus stacking although I've never done it much. I really dont take many pictures of things that arent moving, most of my subjects are people or animals, not landscapes and plants.

However, I was visiting my parents place and found a spider. I caught him into a white container and then used my new extension tubes along with a 100mm macro lens and tried a little focus stacking.

Keep in mind, this spider is about .5" across, including the legs and I have this same shot at 3000 pixels wide and 4000 pixels tall. I took 6 pictures in all, each one focused at what I figure is about 1/64th of an inch "deeper" into the picture. Even then, the picture didnt turn out all that well, but it's much better than it looked in any of the non focus stacked versions. My depth of field is incredibly shallow on a one picture basis, focus stacking was essential.

This was also the first focus stacking I've done where I manually did all the masking, with landscapes and what not I've always let the computer do it automatically and then I just clean it up. This was a long process, about 30 minutes and the results are not really worth it, but it was a still a fun, learning experience.

 

[Misled]

Question. What was the aperture setting on the camera/lens????

 

[Recty]

I was shooting manual at f/4, ISO 400 and I believe 1/250th of a second. I had him in a little white box with slits in it by the window that was capturing and reflecting quite a bit of light, otherwise I would have really had to bump up the ISO.

 

[Omie]

Wow!!! Like that pic!!!
Did u have pics of ur tank/corals???

 

[Reef Bass]

Well done Grant. I've have yet to focus stack. How did you keep the little cutie stationary during your shooting? And how did you move in 1/64" at a time? Rail system?

Would you mind posting one of the "mid range" images from the stack so we could see how the stacked image compares to one of the unstacked images?

Thanks.

 

[Recty]

Wow!!! Like that pic!!!
Did u have pics of ur tank/corals???

I do. If you go back through my previous threads you can see plenty of them.

Well done Grant. I've have yet to focus stack. How did you keep the little cutie stationary during your shooting? And how did you move in 1/64" at a time? Rail system?

Would you mind posting one of the "mid range" images from the stack so we could see how the stacked image compares to one of the unstacked images?

Thanks.

I put the spider in the refrigerator for about 2 minutes before I took these shots, that slows them down a lot without harming them

I moved in 1/64" at a time by holding down the shutter button and I was resting my left pinky against the table and making sure I just real slowly moved in. The picture below is the first one I took, and the last one I took out of 5 pictures the bottom of the legs werent even in focus yet. I know the spider is about 1/4" tall, so I figure I moved somewhere around 1/64" per shot. I wasnt trying to move 1/64", I was just trying to make sure I got it all in focus eventually. I failed around the middle of the body, you can see it's not in focus there but I didnt get a shot where it was. That's where focus rails and a controlled environment would help, but it would have been a much harder shot to pull off.

Anyway, this picture below is the top of the stack. And I'll also include the bottom of the stack.

 

[Recty]

Hah, I actually sent this picture around to 20-30 people at my work who like photography and that's what about 1/4 of them replied back with.

 

[Reef Bass]

Wow, looks to me like you did a great job stacking to produce that final image. Nice...

 

[Recty]

Wow, looks to me like you did a great job stacking to produce that final image. Nice...

Thanks. There is actually quite a bit of work involved in stacking something like this, more than I would have thought. I at first tried to let Photoshop do it but it failed HORRIBLY, so then I did it all manual and it took me around 30 minutes to do all the masking needed to get as much in focus as possible. Still, I think for the environment I was shooting in (handheld, extension tubes and just a window for light) it came out pretty well.

I like to learn more about using Photoshop and this was a good little self taught thing, so in and of itself it was worth doing it just for that.