Canon 5D Mk IV – EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro – Two Einstein 640W Strobes – 1/200, f/8, ISO 100, Eval Meter

Well I am able to access the website again. I suspect there was a problem on the hosting platform. Anyway, today was a macro day. It has continued raining today (it’s rained heavy all weekend) so I chose the guitar as my model. It’s kind of a boring picture – just the bridge of my guitar – but there were a few different things I did.

I did use my macro rail to help focus. The pic is a stack of 6 images – yes, it took 6 images to get this in focus. But the bigger thing I did was try a new focus stacking software program called Zerene Stacker. You can try the program for 30 days at no cost. With the macro rail, I am changing the distance from the lens to the object with each shot, albeit slightly. This is enough to throw off the merging process in Photoshop and you can occasionally see artifacts. Zerene Stacker is dedicated stacking software – that’s all it does. And, in my opinion, it worked great.

The photo was done in my home studio. The 5D was mounted on the macro rail which was on the tripod. I had the remote attached and the camera was tethered to the computer. I also had two Einstein lights set up – one on the left and one on the right.

I need to up my macro work and need to do something more complicated and cool. I need to start looking for a dead bug. If you have an idea for something neat, shoot me a message.