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Common orange lichen, sub stack, Heesch Last one in this series, I promise :)<br /> <br /> With this image, I want to demonstrate the concept of sub stacks. This image is a result of a total stack of 100 images:<br /> <figure class="photo"><a href="https://www.jungledragon.com/image/92741/common_orange_lichen_51_stack_heesch.html" title="Common orange lichen, 5:1 stack, Heesch"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.jungledragon.com/images/2/92741_thumb.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=05GMT0V3GWVNE7GGM1R2&Expires=1759968010&Signature=bsGxqFGnH%2BOYEbW8Bh%2BYlj9m6FE%3D" width="200" height="134" alt="Common orange lichen, 5:1 stack, Heesch This is a stack at 5x macro of the Common orange lichen. A few &quot;making of&quot; notes:<br /> <br /> From this magnification and onwards, things start to look really dirty and messy. Dust, particles, threads everywhere. Depending on the subject, some people prepare their specimens for this reason. The thing I like about this shot is that you can start to see the algae (green), part of the lichen.<br /> <br /> The stack is reasonable but does have beginner issues, in particular a few halo effects that are a common result of stacking. It primarily happens due to 2 reasons: the step length was too small (not in this case), or the software fails to accurately detect sharp/soft edges. Its hard or even impossible to avoid halos altogether, but in the meanwhile I&#039;ve already learned a few things to minimize them.<br /> <br /> Finally, a note on sharpness. I usually post my photos in very high resolution. If I didn&#039;t crop the photo, it&#039;s over 8000 pixels wide. If the shot was decent, you can zoom pretty deeply to inspect additional details in the image. I most certainly can&#039;t produce that at 5x macro, zooming digitally into a high res photos basically means you&#039;re at 10:1 (combined). At that level, there&#039;s way too many optical/movement/noise issues. <br /> <br /> In other words, for these types of images, what you&#039;re looking at is the usable detail. Zooming deeply into the image won&#039;t make you very happy. Common orange lichen,Extreme Macro,Xanthoria parietina" /></a></figure><br /> <br /> ...the one you&#039;re currently seeing on screen is from the same stack. Instead of using all 100 source images, I used 35. The results is that only the first 1/3 of the total stack is in focus, the rest unsharp. I could have also chosen the background to be sharp, and the foreground unsharp. Or the middle, any place really.<br /> <br /> Imagine it as being able to pick a focus point/area AFTER taking an image. Pretty cool! In this example, it&#039;s not that meaningful or beautiful, but I hope you can imagine how on some subjects, you can derive beautiful small depth of field images from a larger stack. <br /> <br /> Perhaps this suggests to always make very deep and huge stacks of 100 images or more, you know...just in case. Unfortunately, there&#039;s a lot of downsides to having lots of images in your stack:<br /> - Takes a long time to make<br /> - Takes a lot of storage<br /> - Takes a lot of processing time to blend together<br /> - Draws a lot of battery power of your camera<br /> - When using flash, drains and overheats the unit<br /> - The most important downside: it wears out your camera. A DSRL&#039;s shutter typically is tested to last 300K images. If you take a 100 images just to produce one image, you can imagine this adding up very quickly.<br /> <br /> Anyway, hope the idea is clear: from a deep stack, you can take individual images or series of images to pick a depth of field after taking the photo.<br /> Common orange lichen,Extreme Macro,Xanthoria parietina Click/tap to enlarge

Common orange lichen, sub stack, Heesch

Last one in this series, I promise :)

With this image, I want to demonstrate the concept of sub stacks. This image is a result of a total stack of 100 images:

Common orange lichen, 5:1 stack, Heesch This is a stack at 5x macro of the Common orange lichen. A few "making of" notes:<br /> <br /> From this magnification and onwards, things start to look really dirty and messy. Dust, particles, threads everywhere. Depending on the subject, some people prepare their specimens for this reason. The thing I like about this shot is that you can start to see the algae (green), part of the lichen.<br /> <br /> The stack is reasonable but does have beginner issues, in particular a few halo effects that are a common result of stacking. It primarily happens due to 2 reasons: the step length was too small (not in this case), or the software fails to accurately detect sharp/soft edges. Its hard or even impossible to avoid halos altogether, but in the meanwhile I've already learned a few things to minimize them.<br /> <br /> Finally, a note on sharpness. I usually post my photos in very high resolution. If I didn't crop the photo, it's over 8000 pixels wide. If the shot was decent, you can zoom pretty deeply to inspect additional details in the image. I most certainly can't produce that at 5x macro, zooming digitally into a high res photos basically means you're at 10:1 (combined). At that level, there's way too many optical/movement/noise issues. <br /> <br /> In other words, for these types of images, what you're looking at is the usable detail. Zooming deeply into the image won't make you very happy. Common orange lichen,Extreme Macro,Xanthoria parietina


...the one you're currently seeing on screen is from the same stack. Instead of using all 100 source images, I used 35. The results is that only the first 1/3 of the total stack is in focus, the rest unsharp. I could have also chosen the background to be sharp, and the foreground unsharp. Or the middle, any place really.

Imagine it as being able to pick a focus point/area AFTER taking an image. Pretty cool! In this example, it's not that meaningful or beautiful, but I hope you can imagine how on some subjects, you can derive beautiful small depth of field images from a larger stack.

Perhaps this suggests to always make very deep and huge stacks of 100 images or more, you know...just in case. Unfortunately, there's a lot of downsides to having lots of images in your stack:
- Takes a long time to make
- Takes a lot of storage
- Takes a lot of processing time to blend together
- Draws a lot of battery power of your camera
- When using flash, drains and overheats the unit
- The most important downside: it wears out your camera. A DSRL's shutter typically is tested to last 300K images. If you take a 100 images just to produce one image, you can imagine this adding up very quickly.

Anyway, hope the idea is clear: from a deep stack, you can take individual images or series of images to pick a depth of field after taking the photo.

    comments (5)

  1. View Christine Young's profile
    Christine Young
    Lion
    View Lion class
    The difference between the 35 and 100 is incredible. I didn’t even know that so many photos could be stacked! Posted 5 years ago
    1. View Ferdy Christant's profile
      Ferdy Christant
      Lion
      View Lion class
      Technically, there's no limit to it, really. You can stack as many photos as you can take, whether you take them manually or in an automated way. Yet the art is to do the minimum needed, given the benefits mentioned. In practice, in the extreme macro range, I see typical numbers of 30-200.

      Just to be silly, exploring the macro rail I have: it's travel length is restricted to 10cm. Smallest step it can make is 1 micron. So for an automated stack on this rail, the theoretical maximum is 100.000 images produced for a single stack. The practical limit I'd estimate at a 1,000 images or even before it, the camera's sensor will overheat and just shut down.       Posted 5 years ago
      1. View Christine Young's profile
        Christine Young
        Lion
        View Lion class
        Crazy! I didn't really have a clear understanding photo stacking before reading your explanations. I honestly thought it just meant that people were creating layered photos in photoshop, hehe. Posted 5 years ago
        1. View Ferdy Christant's profile
          Ferdy Christant
          Lion
          View Lion class
          Well, in a way, some are. Meaning, they input multiple photos (each focused differently) into Photoshop and then merge them into one. A process called blending.

          For high magnification stacks, people typically use Helicon or Zerene, software specialized in this.

          But yes, there's nothing magical about stacking, nor do you need a machine. As a simple example in the real word: say you're looking out over a deep landscape. Use manual focus on your lens and focus it on the foreground. Make a photo. Stay steady and change focus to the middle. Make a photo. One more for the background. Make a photo.

          You now have a stack of 3. Put them into Photoshop and it will produce an image with focus from foreground to background. It will even cater for small movements.           Posted 5 years ago, modified 5 years ago
          1. View Christine Young's profile
            Christine Young
            Lion
            View Lion class
            Interesting and good to know :). Posted 5 years ago

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The Common Sunburst Lichen

Xanthoria parietina is a foliose, or leafy, lichen. It has wide distribution, and many common names such as common orange lichen, yellow scale, maritime sunburst lichen and shore lichen. It can be found near the shore on rocks or walls (hence the epithet parietina meaning "on walls"), and also on inland rocks, walls, or tree bark.

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Similar species: Teloschistales
Species identified by Ferdy Christant
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By Ferdy Christant

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Uploaded Apr 18, 2020. Captured Mar 7, 2020 11:25.
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  • NIKON D850
  • f/1.2
  • 1/50s
  • ISO1000
  • 50mm