Fuscia - Focus Stacked Studio Shoot.

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Seeing as the weather today is absolutely rubbish, I thought I would try something a bit different. I picked this fuscia from one of the plants outside and brought it indoors for a bit of a studio session.

I've not really done much in the way of studio stuff but wanted to practice both setting up some lighting stuff and doing some focus stacking. This image is a stack of 5 different images at different focal lengths with my Sigma 105mm macro lens. Each image in the stack was shot at f11 and then the final image was merged together using Zerene Stacker. This lets you get the whole image pin sharp from front to back. Then I did a bit of clean up in Photoshop and composited a 6th image in to get the refracted second fuscia in the big water drop.

fuscia.jpg

Can you spot the little stowaway?

My mini-studio was set up with an octagonal softbox with speedlite to the right and above of the flower and then a speedlite with a snoot to the left just to direct a bit more light onto the stamens underneath as they were a bit too dark in the shadow of the petals. Added a bit of white paper underneath for some extra fill

IMG_1086 2.JPG

I think my next attempt will be something more high key, maybe a pastel rose on a white background instead of black.

Thanks for reading

Mark

creativecoin oc photography palnet macrophotography
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8 comments
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Now this is proper flower photography! Wonderful work! 👌📷👍

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Thanks :) I'm still learning with artificial light. Not that easy with speedlites as you are always kind of guessing where the light will fall.

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Looking the way you work comes into my mind the term "scientific art" (just made it up :))

And one technical question (if you are in the mood for that). Would you recommend the Sigma 105mm macro lens over the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro? It is the next lens I am about to buy and I got a little puzzled when I saw you chose a Sigma. Or is it just the price that made you choose?

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Thanks, I have a nice high key studio shot that i'll post tomorrow

Just the price. To be honest, there is negligible difference between the two, and at the time I purchased, the Canon was twice the price. Better to spend the spare money on a good macro flash setup. Of course, if you have the spare money then the Canon is ever so slightly better (but not $300 US or whatever it is now better). I've never once felt like I wished that I had purchased the Canon.

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Thank you for your feedback!
The price difference is 300 euro in Greece, quite a lot, indeed. The truth is that most of my EF-S lenses are Sigma and they served me well for many years. I'll have to do some thinking before I buy...
Looking forward for today's picture :)

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This is awesome. I need to experiment more with my flashes and macro.

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