Focus Stacking Tutorial - Part 5 Shooting the stack

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• Main image taken with the Olympus E-M1 III and 60mm macro lens + extension tubes and 2x converter
• Shot at F8, 1/4Sec, ISO400
• Stacked with Zerene Stacker (71 separate shots)
• Edited with Capture One and Aurora HDR

The purpose of this post is to show you how I shoot my stacks and the settings I use.

Having prepared a fly, I first take some shots of it on some cardboard.

Basically I set the white balance for the lighting I am using, make sure I am shooting in raw rather than jpeg too maximize the data I have in each shot, choose manual focus, a low ISO and set up focus bracketing which is all shown in the video below.

Focus Stacking Settings Video

To make the images more interesting I tried to pose the fly on a yellow flower as seen below.

I recorded the short videos below to show you a few of the shoots.

Focus stacking video 1

Focus stacking video 2

Focus stacking video 3

Below are some of the resulting images I created.

Here are links to previous parts to series:-

Part 1 Introduction
Part 2 Preparing Insects
Part 3 Preparing Flowers
Part 4 Equipment

Thanks for taking a look at my photography
@brianhphotos.