Focus Bracketing And A Surprise Hitchhiker!

Picasso Calla Lily Focus Bracketing Composite—10 images (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro lens; 1/3 sec. @ f/11; ISO 200
To see the little hitchhiker, look at the same image below.

This time of year I enjoy making macro or close-up photographs of flower blossoms.  Although not much of a macro or flower photographer, this annual exercise does provide me with an opportunity to further polish what few skills I possess in this photographic specialty.  I have a number of different types of flowers growing in my yard (garden to some of you) and my next door neighbor has always allowed me to clip a blossom or two from her yard.

I spotted this Picasso Calla Lily blooming last week and brought it in, set it up in a very rudimentary and easy manner, similarly to a peony I photographed a couple of weeks ago, which you can read about here.  

This year I wanted to become more familiar with the Focus Stacking and Focus Bracketing features in the Olympus E-M1 Mark II.  I found that on occasion when I wanted to use it in the field, I didn't have enough familiarity with the feature to be able to immediately set it up and use it quickly.  So, I ended up not using it.  Familiarity with your camera's features is always necessary to maximize success, in my opinion.

Olympus gives us two options with this type of composite photography.  Focus Bracketing allows you, in an automated fashion and with one press of the shutter button, to make a series of images, starting from the closest point of desired focus to the farthest point of desired focus, with the focus point automatically moving farther away from the camera between each exposure.  The trick is to set the camera's controls for a sufficient number of exposures (up to 999) and with a sufficient distance differential (1-10) between each exposure to ensure the entire subject is covered with sharp points of focus.  

Later, when you import your images into your editing software you are required to use a different program to combine the images into one composite image that has sharp focus from front to back.  Photoshop, Helicon Focus and Zyrene Stacker are three of which I am aware that will accomplish this.  There may be more.  I use Photoshop and Helicon Focus and a friend of mine uses Zyrene Stacker.  (As a side note, I noticed that some images work better in one program and some work better in the other.  I suspect that is similar to how HDR is handled by different programs for different images.)

Focus Stacking is an automated, "in-camera" feature that works slightly different.  You are limited to 9 exposures and you set your initial focus for the center of your subject.  In the method noted above you start from the front most point.  In this you start in the middle.  From there, the camera's focus point steps closer and farther with each exposure.  You cannot set the number of exposures but you can set the focus distance differential as above (1-10).  The 9 images are then combined in-camera for a finished, albeit a slightly cropped, final image.

Both methods are well implemented by Olympus.  I know one question I had as does everyone else.  That is what does the focus differential 1-10 mean when it comes to distance?  Logically, there is no way of knowing as the differential changes with focus distance.  Setting your camera for #2 when shooting a macro is a much shorter focus differential than setting your camera for #2 and focusing on a scene 3 ft. (1 m) away or 100 ft. (30 m) away.  The distance differential changes according to how far away your subject is.  Confusing?  If you get into it you won't be.  

This particular experiment was for me to particularly get more familiar with the focus differential feature.  For example, a 1:1 macro with a focus differential setting of 1 only changes the focus distance about 3/4 of a millimeter.  A tiny amount.  As another example, setting the camera to about a 1:4 ratio (1/4 life size), I found that at focus differential 5, eight exposures moved the focus distance back about 6 inches (15 cm).  You can see that the larger your subject and longer the focus distance, the larger each focus differential (1-10) will be.  

The top image is one that I produced over a couple of hours during an afternoon of, more or less, this experimentation in getting to better understand how Olympus has Focus Bracketing and Focus Stacking implemented.  However, while looking at the finished product, I noticed what I thought were a very, very small set of eyes looking back at me.  I cropped the image heavily, used Topaz Detail to bring out some of the features and you can see the result (two images below).  Not sure what this little translucent critter is, probably some sort of mite, but it was intensely looking back at me in many of the images I made of this flower.  

You just never know who or what is looking at you these days!

I noticed what looked like a little hitchhiker looking back at me!

This is a crop of more than 100%.  The original file was 5184 x 3888 pixels and this is cropped to 907 x 660 pixels.
I was reasonably pleased with how well this little detail held up on the "too small to be serious" micro 4/3 format!

I noticed he does have really big eyes, however! If anyone knows what this creature is, I would be interested in finding out.  I've done some research but can't find something that matches this little creature.

Lessons Learned: As I have mentioned many, many times, if you are not fully familiar with what your gear can and cannot do, when you need to use something you may be out of luck.  You may fail or perform marginally rather than excel.  

Just like any other craft or skill, photography requires good tools, practice and refinement of technique for improvement.

NEW! As of January 1st, I've started an Instagram feed. I'll be posting photos daily so please follow @dennisamook. Also, for more images check out my website: www.dennismook.com. Thank you. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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