05 Stack for sharpness

Capture multiple images with different focus points and merge them for complete sharpness

When shooting extreme close-ups, it’s impossible to keep everything in the frame sharp from front to back if there’s any depth in the scene. Your best option is to focus stack.

Focus stacking is much easier to perform on subjects that are completely still. For this reason, it’s

“We used a macro lens and some extension tubes to get in closer to the moth’s head”

better to do it for sleeping or dead specimens. For this shoot, we used a dead moth that we mounted to a small tripod stand with a peg.

The best way to get accurate results is to use a focusing rail, but if you don’t have one of these, you can get by another way. Mount your camera to a tripod and keep nudging the focus ring around a couple of millimetres at a time. If you’re going to use this technique, you have to be careful not to nudge the camera out of place during the sequence. For our shoot, we used a macro lens and some extension tubes (68mm). This enabled us to increase the 1:1 ratio aspect of our macro lens to get in closer to the moth’s head. We also used an LED ringflash to light our subject, and a remote release so we didn’t have to touch the camera.

When it comes to editing the images together, professionals often use Zerene Stacking, but you can use Photoshop. If you’re going to merge more than 20 images, it’s best to use the Zerene software.