of a figeater beetle

My parents had some friends give them this beetle saying it was jewelry as a joke but im sure they were surprised by my parents reaction Apparently they got all excited to see it up close when I inevitably take a stack of it Here's the image, 130 shots stacked @ F/5.6.




Midway through the series my taped on hood (also holds the diffuser) for the el nikkor collapsed. I didn't notice that but I did realize my photos got really dark all of a sudden so i spent some time trying to figure out what the heck happened. Eventually I realized it and fixed the problem but not without slightly bumping the beetle The stack still came through though so what do you guys think?

[yeatzee]

Unbelievable! I need to find out more about stacking!

Its a very useful tool, but also quite difficult to do properly Thanks

That looks awesome. Congrats on the image.
How long did the whole procedure take - shooting, then stacking?

Total time for this image was probably 2-3 hours? Not long since its such a large subject

phenomenal photo !! dave m

Thank you

Not pretty, but exquisitely detailed and amazing magnification attained here Tanner.
Excellent work - it's paid off. This is the kind of imagery light or even scanning electron microscopy struggles to achieve.
Well done mate.

Thanks. Yes flickr does it no justice the image is quite sharp

Do you have a Cray in your basement? I can't comprehend stacking 30 photos, let alone 130!

lol Zerene and LR3 are a godsend

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

Good as always. It makes me think of a rhino.

[yeatzee]

Good as always. It makes me think of a rhino.

thats exactly what my mom said

Thanks

[8540tomg]

Outstanding image.

Tom G

[mannesty]

That's a very beautiful image.

How did you make the incremental steps between each shot? Do you use a linear stage or a macro rail?

For anyone interested in focus stacking, you can use the freeware CombineZP which works very well. Just Google it to find the download.

Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus are others, but not freeware.

[exislegirl]

Incredibly beautiful! Such a pleasure to see your photos.

Thank you.

[yeatzee]

Outstanding image.

Tom G

Thanks Tom

That's a very beautiful image.

How did you make the incremental steps between each shot? Do you use a linear stage or a macro rail?

For anyone interested in focus stacking, you can use the freeware CombineZP which works very well. Just Google it to find the download.

Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus are others, but not freeware.

Newport stage (420 to be exact).

Incredibly beautiful! Such a pleasure to see your photos.

Thank you.

No problem!
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alright guys I just bought some ikea jansjo lights:




and made my first stack last night with them. It required a lot of changes in the setup and technique but having constant light is amazing. It will take some time to get everything running at the level my flash setup was but its a start.




77 images, each exposure is 1.6 seconds w/ the el nikkor 50mm F/2.8N reversed @ F/5.6

100% crop:



not bad for a tripod based setup! Im going to attempt to attach the stage setup directly to my desk for more stability