Yesterday I spent some time combining two macro technologies to see if they could be successfully used handheld in the field. I didn’t pick a particularly good day for this macro photography test as it was quite breezy around my yard. On the positive side, the weather added some interesting complexity to the endeavor.
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The two macro technologies that I combined for the images featured in this article were Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking and my camera’s Digital Teleconverter. Using the in-camera Digital Teleconverter creates an equivalent field-of-view of 360 mm.
I suppose the first question that comes to mind is why bother doing this kind of field test? One answer could simply be to take on a challenge to see what would happen… and there’s always good fun in pursuing a challenge. 🙂
In this case there was a specific macro situation that I had in mind that prompted me to do this handheld macro test. Sometimes we are unable to get as close as we would like to a specific macro subject and we end up having to crop our image. This can sometimes be problematic when using Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking as the output is a jpeg… and the latitude we have in post is somewhat limited.
It occurred to me that if I was going to use Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking anyway… and accept the resulting out-of-camera jpeg… there wouldn’t be any additional penalty combining that technology with my camera’s Digital Teleconverter… as that output is also a jpeg.
So, if a photographer wanted to get more magnification in their image without losing light by not using a 2X teleconverter (with the M.Zuiko 90 mm PRO IS macro), or extension tubes… could combining these two macro technologies be a pragmatic solution in specific situations when more magnification was needed?
In many situations we may not have a 2X teleconverter or extension tubes with us… so the in-camera Digital Teleconverter may be our only realistic option to increase magnification.
After capturing a good selection of images, my initial assessment was that this combination could work… depending on the end use of the resulting macro jpeg image. This isn’t an approach I would use to produce large prints… but there may be some potential for internet postings and smaller sized prints.
As you review the test images in this article you will be able to see some artifacts and some ghosting. Given the breezy conditions I actually thought these issues would be much worse than what was actually captured in the images. Under more favourable conditions I would anticipate cleaner images in terms of far fewer artifacts and less ghosting.
I spent almost no time on these images in post. I ran them through my DxO PhotoLab custom pre-set for 90 mm macro images with perhaps a minor highlight tweak. Then exported a jpeg into an old copy of PhotoShop CS6 where I adjusted levels… then finished the files with a quick run through Topaz DeNoise AI.
I did do some quick burning with one of the of images to add some dramatic effect… but even that took less than a minute to do. Most of the images featured in this article were in and out of post in less than 3 minutes including computer time.
There were precious few opportunities to use this combination of macro technologies on insects. The breeze was just too sustained in most parts of my yard.
I had to keep focused on a subject insect for several minutes as it bobbed around in the breeze. In some cases the insect would be blown right out of my composition and I’d have to wait for it to reappear once the breeze subsided.
I found a single, tiny spider on a web in my front yard. It was only about half of the length of the fingernail on my index finger. The image above was captured using Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking… but without the Digital Teleconverter.
I captured this image to act as a baseline size and thus help illustrate the impact of combining macro technologies when doing handheld macro photography.
The image above is of the same spider but combining macro technologies (i.e. Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking with Digital Teleconverter). If you check the EXIF data you’ll find that all of the settings are identical. The only difference is the distance to subject is slightly further away with the image above. This was my favourite test image of the day.
Combining macro technologies does take a lot of shot discipline. For example, I had my camera focused on the spider in the above photograph for almost five minutes waiting for the breeze to settle down sufficiently to capture this image. It kept on blowing in and out of my composition at the whims of the breeze.
All of the photographs in this article are displayed as full frame captures without any cropping. I used a stack of 15 frames with a Focus Differential of 3 for all of the images in this article. A single auto-focus point was used for all of the photographs. As is my standard practice, I used a short stool for all of the photographs in this article.
Technical Note
Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear as noted in the EXIF data. All images were created from out-of-camera jpeg files using my standard process in post. I used a stack of 15 frames with a Focus Differential of 3 for all of the images in this article. This is the 1528 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.
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