7

I want to make a full focus on the body, for example:
I need to have a clear focus on the each balls in the photo. I used just single point focus.

enter image description here

In this picture I used:

  • shutter speed: 8
  • aperture: F/4
  • ISO: 200
  • 2 flashes, one in the right and one on the top of project
  • camera: nikon d300s
  • lens : 105mm micro 2.8

Thanks

Michael C
  • 175,039
  • 10
  • 209
  • 561
rixlinux
  • 301
  • 3
  • 5
  • also see http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/22358/how-do-i-get-adequate-depth-of-field-in-macro-photography – K'' May 10 '12 at 18:54

2 Answers2

13

To get more depth-of-field you have to increase the aperture from F/4. Since your subject does not have much depth, F/8 might be enough. Otherwise, try F/11.

Since you are using flashes, their illumination will drop off proportionally to your aperture. So going from F/4 to F/8, you loose 2 stops of light. There are 3 ways to compensate:

  • Boost ISO by 2 stops, so to ISO 800 in that case. In your D300s, the quality difference should be minimal. This is the easiest adjustment to make.
  • Reduce the distance of the flashes by half. Light falls off with the square of the distance. So at half the distance, you will have 4X the flash power.
  • Boost the flash power by 2 stops.
Itai
  • 102,570
  • 12
  • 191
  • 423
  • 1
    Or make the shutter speed longer – Billy ONeal Jun 23 '11 at 04:04
  • 7
    @Billy - Wrong. Shutter-speed has no effect on flash since the burst of flash is very short compared to the shutter-speed. You will only get a difference due to ambient lighting. – Itai Jun 23 '11 at 04:08
  • 2
    @Billy ONeal - shutter speed doesn't really have any effect on the flash exposure – rfusca Jun 23 '11 at 04:09
  • @rfusca - Jinx! Although apparently I had a 29s lead ;) – Itai Jun 23 '11 at 04:10
  • @Itai - dang, I gotta type faster ;) – rfusca Jun 23 '11 at 04:11
  • @rfusca: This is true. Might be possible to elide the flash entirely though. – Billy ONeal Jun 23 '11 at 04:16
  • 4
    @Billy flash, done correctly, isn't something to avoid. As photographers, we are light artists - we should use the tools we have. – rfusca Jun 23 '11 at 04:19
  • You might also want to adjust the composition so that the tower of balls is parallel to the plane of the sensor. This would help keep more of them in the plane of focus. –  Jun 23 '11 at 06:05
  • @rfusca: I wasn't saying it was something to avoid. Just that if the flashes aren't powerful enough, it might be good to just use ambient light and a longer shutter speed. Of course if you've got headroom on the power of the flash it might be a good idea to use that instead. – Billy ONeal Jun 23 '11 at 22:37
  • @Billy ah, sorry then. If flashes aren't powerful enough, I find it unlikely that ambient would be strong enough without resorting to a tripod, which may or may not be possible. – rfusca Jun 24 '11 at 01:39
3

If increasing aperture (which I would use too) does not help, there could be possibility to use focus stacking like on this example from Wikipedia using something like free Combine ZM/ZP. But have no experience with it. :-D

enter image description here

Juhele
  • 1,407
  • 1
  • 10
  • 11
  • Shrinking your aperture should always help with depth of field, but sometimes you run out of f-stops. Focus stacking like this should be useful if you're already at f/22 or whatever your lens's smallest aperture is. – Evan Krall Jun 23 '11 at 08:39
  • 2
    @Evan: it's also helpful when/if you simply want your picture sharper than f/22 (for example) will give. You lose enough due to diffraction at smaller apertures that a stack at (say) f/8 can increase DoF and resolution. – Jerry Coffin Jul 05 '11 at 07:17
  • @Jerry That's a good point. – Evan Krall Jul 05 '11 at 07:48