Focus Stacking Artifacts

The focus-stacking software I use can introduce artifacts into images.

 

Sometimes a "reflection" is generated. Here, there's one across the bottom. (Check out the crablike spider at the top.)

 

As I was shooting this caterpillar, an ant made its way along a lovage stem, and focus stacking gave ghost ants. There are reflections at the top and bottom, too.

Without ghost ants

When I shoot macro with focus stacking in mind, I set the lens to the closest focusing distance and then approach the subject until just before it's in focus. Then I shoot a burst as I move the lens closer.

I wanted the bug in addition to the bee. The bug was closest to the lens, so for the focus stack I chose an image with the bug and then skipped some images until the bee was in focus. The result is a semitransparent effect. This happens somewhat often and I haven't figured out when it's likely.

Without the image of the bug in-focus, the bee is less ghostly.

To get the picture I wanted, I took the previous image and pasted-in the bug and parts of the flower.

Recent Bugs

A fly? A bee? I put less effort into identifying the types of some insects than I used to because there are flies that look like bees, bees that look like flies, flies that look like wasps, and I don't know what else. As for species, sometimes it seems as though one has to count the hairs on a leg to decide.

eastern yellowjacket wasp on lovage

 A northern paper wasp, maybe. Many photos show them with stripes, but this photo matches one in an ODNR publication which says, "This is our most common native paper wasp, but is highly variable and can be mistaken for several different species. Further, recent studies have revealed two previously unrecognized species nearly identical to the Northern Paper Wasp." Also, an Iowa State U. website says, "... the separation of P. fuscatus from related species remains the greatest taxonomic problem of the northeastern Vespidae fauna." What did I write in the first photo's caption?

cabbage white butterfly, I think. This would have been a fantastic shot if only the butterfly were in focus.

Leaf-footed bug. I focused on the eggs, which look like barrels lined-up end-to-end. The party is on a porch screen.

leaf-footed bug nymphs

black swallowtail caterpillar on dill

Bugs on milkweed

A few milkweed plants came over the back fence to my yard.

This picture is not so great, but what struck me is the little bug on the leaf. The caterpillar is a monarch, and we've never had one reach the pupa stage.

You might think there's something fake about this picture, or that it was made in a studio because of the uniform background. The background is the brick front of my house, and it's so out-of-focus that we get the color but lose the brick pattern. In the previous shot, the blue is from a window shutter.

For some reason, I have a very hard time getting good shots of bees.

Some kind of milkweed bug, maybe.

Some kind of fly.

All shots are macro except the bee. I have a number of macro shots of bees, but they're crummy.

Depth of field example

This photo of a caterpillar on my porch screen illustrates the shallow depth of field when my lens is zoomed to its maximum length (200mm). Only that narrow strip is on focus.

white-marked tussock moth larva (f/5.6, 1/350s, ISO 1600)

Columbus Zoo July 22

My visit was actually July 23, but "three" doesn't rhyme with "zoo."

dromedary camel

The signage says common ostrich, but the website says blue-neck ostrich.

Saddle-billed storks dance.

At the Columbus Zoo, North America is adjacent to Heart of Africa, so it was no trouble to walk.

A cedar waxwing. This is one of my favorite birds because of its cool sunglasses and jaunty hairdo.

A scarlet tanager, in nonstandard plumage. These guys are supposed to be red all over with black wings. Females are yellowish.

Caterpillars on the bald eagle enclosure. I hadn't noticed these, but another visitor pointed them out, and the white ones were crawling all over the fencing.

A trumpeter swan takes a drink.

A honey bee at work