Common orange lichen, 3.5:1 stack, Heesch

A 3.5x macro stack of a Common orange lichen.

From this magnification and onwards, vibration is a real issue. Even when you sit absolutely still, the scene will vibrate. It could be because of a distant passing car, the laundry machine in the next room, anything.

This problem in particular manifests itself when using continuous light for stacking. Even a very strong continuous LED light pointing directly at this subject, almost touching it, still gives only a relatively slow 1/50s shutter speed, which is too slow to avoid vibration.

One solution is to add even more continuous lights or more powerful ones. A better solution is flash, which has its own problems that I'll discuss in another post.

I also like to add an important creative lesson. The maximum magnification of a topic isn't always the best or most interesting. For example, from this series of this species, I like this one best:

Things don't always look better or more interesting when magnifying further, it really depends on the topic. Furthermore, the biggest magnification also has the biggest problems, the process is extra difficult and the result not as sharp.

For this reason, I also sometimes use my 1:1 macro lens for stacking. It's optically a superior lens and still has a decent magnification. As I go beyond these first steps that are highly technical, my focus should be on meaning, not magnification for magnification sake.