Oxeye daff, tulip in soft mode, and drumstick

[carregwen]

Took these in the past few days - I got bored/tired with major reconstruction garden work under the close supervision of the resident (smarty-pants-I-know-everything) botanist... my wife. So I picked a few flowers and took 'em into the studio. Comments welcome. All shot with 50D and Sigma 105mm macro. Lit by studio lights and reflector (very simple setup)

Oxeye Daffodil - 8 shots stacked in Helicon



Tulip in soft mode - single shot. I took this shooting into the light of north window. The base and backdrop is the kitchen counter and wall tiling (see, I'm sophisticated and highly technical)



Drumstick Primula Ten shots stacked in Helicon. It's very sharp and in focus in the original. The water drops are dew, as I picked it early this morning when the botanist was asleep.

[Donald]

Rob

All nice. However, the Drumstick is beautiful. Right on the nail!

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Rob,

Stunning!

I can see I am going to have to get Helicon sooner or later.

How do you do the focusing?
Have you got a clever set up, or just by hand/eye?

Does Helicon work any worse if the focused shots are unevenly spaced?

EDIT: that's a silly question isn't it?
As long as they are less far apart than the DoF, it probably doesn't even notice.

Thanks,

[carregwen]

How do you do the focusing?
Have you got a clever set up, or just by hand/eye?

Camera on tripod (obviously), I manually focus in and out to get the 'range' needed. Start at the front and work back, just turning the focus ring a fraction at a time - you need good eyesight. It helps to get comfortable (sitting) and you soon learn to stop breathing for about a minute at a time.

Does Helicon work any worse if the focused shots are unevenly spaced?

EDIT: that's a silly question isn't it?
As long as they are less far apart than the DoF, it probably doesn't even notice.

Thanks,

Doesn't seem to make much difference. It must go through the shots gathering (by some sort of comparison) the best focussed bits of each shot. It's a very clever bit of software. £40 a year licence. http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconfocus.html You can download free trial, but you get the watermark stuff. It actually takes quite a bit of practise to get it all right, but worth it in the end. Simple (cheap) studio lighting makes it all so much easier with great results.

[Dave Humphries]

Thanks for the info Rob,

Shame it's an annual license, that's not how most other stuff works (e.g. Neat Image)

I can see I'll give it a go though, thanks again,