Recently discovered that shooting flowers isn’t as easy as it looks. Took this one with the 120 macro 1/4 sec @f/8. Looked a little soft so I sharpened it up a bit…maybe a bit too much. Made me wonder what you guys are using for a sharpening technique.
For a shot with that much range of focus depth, I would reccommend focus stacking. Got to have zero wind on the flower, and a tripod
helical makes great software to do it and you can get a free trial.http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconfocus.html
You can do it in Photoshop as described here
http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/tutorials/150808-focus-stacking-photoshop-cs5.htmlIn the work I have previously submitted here, I had a different vision, and chose not to use focus stacking. But I have done so in the past and found Helicon to be amazingly fast and easy. After doing it in Photoshop, Helicon makes it look like magic.
Over sharpening is not the answer as you admit. Macro with the S2 is terrific, but with less depth focus stacking is an answer.
Hope this helps,
JackJackJack,
Thanks for the advice re:focus stacking. I’ve read about it but have yet to give it a try. Took a few shots with the 120 macro again today and find that the more I use this lens the better I like it. The second shot is a crop taken from a different photo than the first. I actually like the crop better but thought I’d post the shot of the flower for context.
David K;224 wrote: Recently discovered that shooting flowers isn’t as easy as it looks. Took this one with the 120 macro 1/4 sec @f/8. Looked a little soft so I sharpened it up a bit…maybe a bit too much. Made me wonder what you guys are using for a sharpening technique.
Hey David
I use Photokit Sharpener (Jeff Schewe, Mac Holbert et al are the developers) which gives lots of control over how you sharpen the image. Not expensive and I believe there is a trial version as well. Their
company is called Pixel Genius.Woody
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