achieving depth of field w digicam???

This one goes out to the digital photography gurus out there.

I was talking to a buddy last night about macrophotography of small fossils, 1-3cm stuff, and how capturing any depth of field continues to be the major challenge. He suggested three ways of doing it: buy the $25,000 camera system made to do the job, take the picture 3 meters away from the specimen and blow up the image, or take multiple shots, focusing on different areas, and stitch them together with Helicon, Combine-Z, or the expensive new version of PhotoShop.

All are basically horrible options.

So, is there anything new and interesting in the world of digital photography that's giving depth of field to macrophotography in a simple, affordable manner? (My weapon of choice atm is a Canon Digital Rebel with a 50mm macro lens.)

Many thanks for any info!

Tim Jokela Jr.
tjokela@execulink.com

I am no guru in any way so there might be Maybe someone else might have better ideas about depth of field but your buddy might be right as there are optical limits and making lenses with smaller aparture openings is probably not going to happen as it also makes other problems.

I really think Combine-Z is very easy to use and not horrible in any way.

Here are a three examples taken with simple a compact/pocket cam, a Canon Powershot together with a Raynox close-up lens:

[wretling.net]
[wretling.net]
[wretling.net]

I have intentionally left some areas out of focus to keep some feeling of depth. I am quite happy with them and they don't take very long time to make.

Per

Well assuming you are using M or Av modes with the camera set to the smallest appeture size your lens allows with either lots of external light or a lengthy exposure with a rock solid tripod, you have probably reached the limits of the optics. The new model rebel is 12 megapixels which will allow you to position the lens further away to create an image with the same horizontal resolution as you do today giving better depth of field. Suggest going to a pro camera shop with a rock or two and trying out some other EF lenses with your setup, but higher quality won't be cheap.

Some personal observations on mineral photography, mostly photomicrography:

The fewer the lens elements, the greater the contrast, period. An old anastigmat lens will out perform a modern lens, hands down.

A controllable aperture will improve depth of field, to a point.

Good lighting and planning a shot will improve any image (as opposed to taking 30 images and hoping that one of them is OK)

Most "fuzzy" images are caused by vibration, not poor focus.

A Gazillion pixels will not improve a bad photograph

Digital manipulation of images using Photoshop, Combine-Z and stitching software can greatly enhance an image, but should be used sparingly

Another thing, if you have the original Digital Rebel (or EOS 300D in europe), there is an unofficial updated third-party firmware that adds lots of useful features:

* Enables Custom functions menu
* Enables Flash Exposure Compensation using SET button
* Enables SET button function when shooting (to change image quality or shooting parameters)
* Enables Shutter release w/o CF card (useful for USB connections)
* Flash sync speed in Av mode
* Enables RAW+JPEG rec. Enables setting the quality of embedded JPEG
* Enables Mirror Lock up
* Enables the ability to select the autofocus mode: AI servo, Oneshot etc.
* Enables setting ISO 3200

I've had this firmware installed for over 2 years without ANY problems.

[www.bobatkins.com]

Jolyon

ps. I believe more recent consumer-level EOS models have many of these functions enabled by default anyway.

hey Per, did you edit those piks with anything or were they taken with the camera and thats it? they are killer!! I use a Nikon 950 and stock macro, but wow, your piks are great!!

mlgdave

The photographs I have uploaded so far were all shot with a Coolpix 4500, and most of them (the older ones) were not even taken at the highest resolution. For objects in the 2cm+ size range, it provides good results.

Dave, my macros are taken with camera on tripod and focus/Macro rail, stacked with CombineZ and probably cropped a bit in Photoshop Elements as CombineZ makes the pics blurry around the edges.

The post-processing i usually do on most pictures if i decide to publish them to web is a bit "unsharp mask" and "levels" after resizing.

CombineZ have a pretty harsh sharpening at the default setting so i have modifed the default settings so i make the sharpening myself in Photoshop instead.

It really is possbile to make som very nice shots with other cameras than DSLR, I have been using Fujifilm s6500fd and Canon Powershot a710is latest year.

I am also very happy with these: [wretling.net]

Per

In terms of sharpening, if you're using a Canon DSLR, the best results I've had (after a bit of research and advice) is to record as RAW, import into Photoshop as a Raw image, turn the sharpening in the RAW converter to zero, adjust the image in the RAW converter (white balance, contrast, etc) before sending to Photoshop. It's much much better to do this in the raw converter than in Photoshop, as you're dealing with the full depth of the colour data, rather than the 8-bit per channel conversion you have in Photoshop (alternatively, with recent photoshop versions, you can import into a 16bit per channel workspace and then you can adjust in Photoshop without losing much quality.

Once in Photoshop you shouldn't have to do any other adjustments (except painting-out dust, etc), then apply a unsharp mask with the following settings: Radius: 0.3pixels, Strength: 300%.

This tends to give me very good results. Of course, your nice images can be messed up completely if you save to a JPEG with too high compression. Save a PSD file as well if you need to work on it in future, or send a version for print.

Jolyon

Hi Per,
excellent photos on [wretling.net]!

Uwe

Per,
Those are great photos!
Which specific Raynox lens are you using?
What are you using for your light source?

Tom