robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I had my 5DIV and Tamron 180 macro to take shots of an Iris. I saw a butterfly and walked over to the plants it had been near, but it was gone. There were several bees around. One pot the plant had died and I keep watering it to see if something else will sprout or just to get the dead remains to rot for nutrients for the next thing to go in the pot. This was right after I watered it and some water had still not soaked in and the bees were landing on debris to drink. I noticed they stayed still for sometimes 10 seconds or more while they drank so I focused on the body of this one, did a shot and he was still there so I kept the shutter button half down, leaned back an inch or so to get the foreground in focus but the bee out of focus (I was on single shot focus.) pressed the shutter with the camera on "silent burst" and leaned a couple inches closer so at the end of the burst the bee was again out of focus but the back ground was in focus. An 8 shot burst. Then I ran it from LR>PS>LR, tweaked it a bit color and contrast wise. I did clone out some stark white spots caused by reflections being in the same place on all 8 frames.

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ebbote Loc: Hockley, Texas

Well done Robert.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Thank You

woodweasel Loc: bellingham Wa

Very nice capture and thanks for the info

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Thank you.

I learned about that trick for a quick focus stack at a free class sponsored by the local photo store and taught by three macro specialists from a local professional photographer and videographer club. The guy was a nut for water drops and splashes with an elaborate setup but he said here is something you should try for cases when you find a subject you weren't expecting. He had his Nikon set up with the two flash macro holder (850 or D500, he had both with him and I don't remember which he was using). He put a pocket watch on a piece of black velvet, then on Manual focus he focused on the near edge of the watch, leaned back just a hair, mashed down the shutter on high speed burst and leaned forward a few inches. Pulled the card, put it in a laptop, opened PS, gave it the "align" command, talked about how it took a lot of trials to get where he has a decent success rate, told PS to blend, talked a bit more and then put the result up on the overhead screen. Total time, under 5 minutes. It needed cropping to get rid of unaligned edges and had one small gap on the watch's winding stem that was out of focus. Impressive trick that can sometimes be very useful.