A Few Arboretum Flowers from July

In July I took two quick trips to a local arboretum for flower photography.  All of these are a result of focus stacking of up to 24 images.

Some of them are a bit blurry in a couple of places.  In particular the first pink flower could have used one or two images closer to the camera, as the nearest petal is out of focus.

Here are the best of the bunch.

Unfortunately closes petal is out of focus.

(Though on Instagram I suspect it is not noticeable.)

"The Loner" 

Soon to be Raspberries (?)

New Lens and some Fresh Flowers

In my last post I talked about the new (for me) Olympus lens I now own.  It's the 40-150mm PRO F2.8 zoom (80-300mm-full frame equivalent).

Here are a few shots from our local public arboretum.  All were done at F2.8 using the focus bracketing feature onboard my Olympus E-M1.  All were shot with 25 images.  I focus on the closest part of the flower and the camera does the rest, moving the focus point further away in small increments until 25 images are recorded. I do often discard one or more of the photos at the end of the series if by then the images were focused past the flower. The total images used in creating the images below ranged from 8 to 24. The images were stacked and processed in Lightroom and Photoshop.  It is a rather lengthy process.

These are all hand held, but I do use a little fold-up stool for low shots.  I sit on it and rest my elbows on my knees. I do have a tripod (not a fan), but usually leave it in the car (on purpose).

Tulip

Veronica

Grape Hyacinth

Apple blossoms

White Trilliulm

Very pink Trillium

I'm not sure yet what kind of fruit these will be.

Yup, just your basic Dandelion

Pink Trillium

Inside at the botanic garden in November

Below is a set of images from the Tower Hill Botanic Garden, from a visit in November.  All were shot with an Olympus E-M1 and either the Olympus 12-100mm F4 zoom or the Olympus 60mm F2.8 macro lens.  All were shot at F4 and at a range of ISOs, depending on the amount and direction of light.

All were focus-bracketed with between 10 and 18 images and the camera was hand-held in all cases.  Processing was in Lightroom, and aligning the images and stacking was completed in Photoshop.

Cape Fuschia

10 focus-stacked images

Olympus 12-100mm

Indian Mallow

15 focus-stacked images

Olympus 60mm macro

Rosemary

17 focus-stacked images

Olympus 60mm macro

Forked Blue Curl

13 focus-stacked images

Olympus 12-100mm

Bougainvillea

9 focus-stacked images

Olympus 12-100mm

Croton

16 focus-stacked images

Olympus 12-100mm

Match Stick Flower

18 focus-stacked images

Olympus 12-100mm

Palm Frond
17 focus-stacked images
Olympus 12-100mm

Focus Stacking a few September Flowers

During my one visit to the botanic garden in September I found myself rather disappointed.  Everything was beginning to look a bit ragged. I was nevertheless pleased with these images.
These flowers were photo stacked with between 5 and 12 images.  Whoops, the first one is a wild geranium and it is a single shot.

The lens used is an Olympus 12-100 (24-200mm equiv) F4 zoom.  The camera is my aging Olympus E-M1.  All were done at base ISO 200 and aperture was wide open at F4. All were hand held. Shutter speeds ranged from 1/250 to 1/640. Images were merged and edited in Lightroom Classic.

Wild Geranium (one image)

Phlox (12 images)

Verbana (5 images)

Marigold (9 images)

Anenome (10 images)

Flower Photos from July

As it turns out all of my flower photos for July were taken during a two hour visit to Tower Hill Botanic Garden on July 14. It was a mid-day visit and the sun was high in the sky, but the light was nicely diffused.

Petunia

Single image. No focus stacking

Gazania

Single image. No focus stacking

All of these images were taken using an Olympus EM-1 and an Olympus 60mm (120mm-full frame equivalent) macro lens.  Two are single images and the other 19 are focus stacked with between 3 and 24 images. Using aperture priority, most were at F4 and a few were at F2.8.  There was plenty of light, so all were shot at my camera’s base ISO of 200.  Shutter speeds were “safe” speeds of from 1/160 to 1/2000sec, with most being between 1/500-1/800sec.

Water Lily

Three stacked images

Marigold

Seven stacked images

Mock Vervain

Seven stacked images

One thing I’ve been learning about focus stacking is that it is a l-o-n-g process.  Not so much in the field, as the auto stacking feature on the newer Olympus cameras works quite smoothly. But, it’s in post processing that a lot of time is required.  

Day Lily

Eight stacked images

Day Lily

Nine stacked images

Photoshop does a great job aligning the images. I'm thankful for that, as all of these images were taken hand-held. However, it takes quite a while for the Photoshop software to first align the images and then make a second run to blend them.  The photographer has to hang around to click various check boxes as the computer churns and churns. 

Leopard Lily
10 stacked images

Poppy

11 stacked images

The results are quite startling to me.  Perhaps the thrill will wear off and perhaps eventually (soon?) I will decide it just isn’t worth the effort.  But right now I am finding it fun.

Mock Vervain

12 stacked images

Wild Geranium

13 stacked images

Although the shutter speeds I was using resulted in sharp images, it nevertheless took the camera 5 (?) seconds to record 25 images.  During that time there is inevitably some movement of the camera, as well as the flower. A tripod might help, but I didn’t use one during this outing.  A tripod would freeze the camera in one spot… though the flower will still move except on absolutely windless days.

Day Lily

15 stacked images

Fan Flower

17 stacked images

I’m not a tripod fan as it is, and the excellent alignment algorithms in Photoshop are making it easier and easier for me to leave the tripod in the car!

Egyptian Starclusters

18 stacked images

19 stacked images

Poppy

22 images

22 images

Insect on Flower

22 images

The Inner Workings

23 images

Bee on Flower

24 images