Roger2011 Loc: Central Illinois

These images were taken with an iPhone XR and Moment macro lens. The macro lens has a focus range of just one centimeter, which is why only the near part of each dandelion head is in focus. The CameraPixels app was used to focus bracket 50 images, which were then aligned and stacked in Affinity Photo. Affinity Photo was used to post process the images and clip off the bottom portion of the first one.

The dandelion is indeed a strange plant. After the yellow head forms it will spend a week or more soaking up the sun's energy to produce those strange protrusions that get longer each day. As the sun goes down, the flower closes shop for the night and will open back up the next morning. Then one evening when we've been distracted by millions of other nearby dandelions, this one closes shop for what seems like good. But a few days later it opens back up, this time with a big head of gray hair comprising the feathery seed sails that will slowly drift away in the breeze to start more dandelions in our yard.

When the dandelions start coming out in a few days I'm going to locate an emerging one in a sunny and safe spot and place a marker near it so I can return to it periodically. I will visit it morning, noon, and evening to see it opening up for the day, soaking up the sunlight during the day, and closing up shop for the night. Then I will take as close of a sharp photo of it as possible morning, noon, and evening to get decently sharp images. I will repeat this each day until the final head of seed sails pops open and eventually they all sail away in the breeze. You all may want to try something like that too.

Dandelion shortly before it closes up to produce its light gray seed sails.

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Dandelion head with seeds and sails, some blown away in the wind.

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Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Nice!

Fstop12 Loc: Kentucky

Nice closeups. Have you considered doing a timelapse of this process?

Ava'sPapa Loc: Cheshire, Ct.

These are dandelions as I've never seen them before. Thank you. I'm in the market for a new phone. Which is considered to have the best camera? The iPhone 13 Pro Max or the XR that you used here? These close ups are very nice.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

These are awesome!

DougS Loc: Central Arkansas

Outstanding results from an outstanding technique!

RWCRNC Loc: Pennsylvania

Roger2011 Loc: Central Illinois

Ava'sPapa, according to the guy in the know, the iPhone 13 Pro Max is better.
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/iphone-13-vs-iphone-xr-camera-comparison

However, I do not believe the iPhone 13 Pro Max would be able to produce images like these obtained from my iPhone XR without the aid of an attached macro or closeup lens, focus bracketing and stacking, and some additional post processing in a photo editor like Photoshop or Affinity Photo.

Wingpilot Loc: Wasilla. Ak

Remarkable images.
The iPhone 13 Pro Max is clearly the better camera, however it will need some help with either camera apps or add-ons like these Moment lenses to get these kinds of images.

Ava'sPapa Loc: Cheshire, Ct.

Thanks Roger. That's the info I was seeking.

Roger2011 Loc: Central Illinois

That's a great idea. I have the hardware and software. Now I just need the grey matter.

Let's see. The life of a dandelion may be several weeks, and I probably don't want to leave my iPhone sitting outside on a small tripod that whole time, snapping an image every now and then. But I don't go anywhere so my alternative is to securely anchor down the small tripod with iPhone mount securely attached so the combination won't move when I attach my iPhone and remove it. Next, I set up CameraPixels to handle nominal conditions and go from there.

The problems I see are, 1. Light and environmental conditions will change during the day and from day to day, 2. The dandelion grows on a stem and will change locations during the day and from day to day, and 3. Because the dandelion is on a stem, even light breezes will cause it to move while it's being focus bracketed, resulting in blurred images.

The possible solutions might be. Time lapse photography is somewhat forgiving of exposure and alignment errors associated with a slowly moving target. In essence, I expect that the tripod, mount, and camera system will have to be repositioned periodically as the dandelion grows, because the lens must be placed quite close to the flower to get the desired macro magnification. I will have previous images of the flower on my laptop and try to match the current image on my iPhone with the latest of them. Likewise I will try to match exposure, etc of the current image with previous ones for best continuity.

The third issue is a very delicate one. I must fabricate or obtain a small loop clamp to close around the dandelion stem right below the flower and out of sight from the camera to minimize its movement from air currents. And this clamp cannot damage the stem in any way because the flower will depend on it its whole life. Maybe a better idea would be to fabricate a small plastic tent that each time would be set down over the whole setup. The tent would let in the needed light but block wind and rain when made of clear plastic.

One more item. What if the subject dandelion is damaged for whatever reason and is no longer suitable for further time lapse photographing? The good news is previous surveys have shown that our yard contains in the vicinity of 1.3 million dandelions at any given time, so I would simply search out another similar-looking dandelion of equal maturity and commence photographing it. Would that be considered cheating?

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Fstop12 Loc: Kentucky

I just took this closeup of a penny using my IPhone 13 Pro Max. Macro mode is activated automatically when you get close to an object. Some things to consider: If you want to use the Moment Macro lens then you will also need a Moment Case. The macro lens is regularly $129.99 but is on sale right now for $109.99. Moment phone cases run around $49.99.

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Roger2011 Loc: Central Illinois

To get a good understanding of the iPhone's macro lens ability to magnify at 2cm working distance, get a good quality ruler with clear and sharp mm markings. Plastic or metal will work. Place the iPhone on a tripod and get the lens perfectly parallel to the ruler surface. Bring the lens as close to the ruler as possible and still keep the markings in sharp focus. Check out this video to see the problems with this lens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3q85TbmyOI The problem is that the lens gets only the center part of the image, about 25% of it, in sharp focus and the rest is somewhat fuzzy, as can be seen by the spread-out and fuzzy mm marking lines. This limitation is because Apple had to squat down the macro lens to keep it from protruding out from the phone face. The macro lens performance is still great, but it may not produce the best quality images at maximum magnification. The Moment macro lens doesn't appear to have this problem because they can poke their lenses out from the phone's face and presumably get more uniform focus across the lens.

Ava'sPapa Loc: Cheshire, Ct.

More good info. Thank you.

Fstop12 Loc: Kentucky

Totally agree that the Moment Macro lens is better than the native IPhone macro feature. I guess it comes down to do you want great or good enough. I rarely use the Macro feature so good enough is, good enough.