This article features a selection of Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacked HHFS images captured with the M.Zuiko 150-600 telephoto zoom. All of the photographs featured in this article were unplanned captures.
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A friend and I had been out photographing birds at Hendrie Valley and LaSalle Park to get in some practice before the spring bird migration season.
After leaving LaSalle Park he suggested that we visit the Gage Park Tropical Greenhouse in Hamilton. The only lens that I had brought with me was my M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS telephoto zoom.
I agreed to go to the tropical greenhouse even though my initial thought was that the 150-600 wouldn’t have been my first choice of lens for that genre of photography.
As it turned out the 150-600 worked out much better than I had anticipated.
After capturing a few standard images, I decided to dedicate the rest of my time at the Gage Park Tropical Greenhouse to using Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking.
It took some patience to select the right cluster of blossoms, or individual flowers, to photograph.
I was trying to find blossoms that were decently separated from others proximate to them, and provided me with opportunities to use my emerging from darkness technique, if possible.
As you can see from the images featured in this article I had a modicum of success finding the right lighting to attempt emerging from darkness compositions.
Since the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS telephoto zoom has a minimum focusing distance of only 560 mm (~ 22 inches) on the wide end of the zoom, I also experimented with depth-of-field using various apertures, focal lengths and distances to subject.
The Sync-IS of my M.Zuiko 150-600 telephoto zoom performed extremely well. I was able to get some useable out-of-camera jpeg images when using a shutter speed of 1/125. My E-M1X’s Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking function was set to a stack of 15 images, and a Focus Differential of 3.
There is a waterfall and a small pond in the tropical greenhouse which houses a few turtles. I captured a couple of test images of the turtles. The photograph above was captured using Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking at a distance of 4.4 metres (~ 14.4 feet) using a shutter speed of 1/125, at a focal length of 523 mm (efov 1046 mm).
My second Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacked test turtle image was captured from a distance of 4 metres (~ 13.1 feet) using a shutter speed of 1/125, with my lens fully extended to 600 mm (efov 1200 mm). I was quite pleased with both of the resulting turtle test images.
Throughout my visit to the Gage Park Tropical Greenhouse I did my best to compose my images as full frame captures so I could avoid having to do any cropping in post.
Save for a few isolated image captures I was able to accomplish this goal and was able to avoid any cropping.
While I wouldn’t have initially though of using my M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom lens to photograph subject material at the tropical greenhouse, it turned out to be a very good piece of kit for this task.
It was very easy to handle even at slower shutter speeds of 1/125 when using Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking.
The resulting out-of-camera jpegs needed only a modicum of work in post processing.
The image sharpness, level of details, and colour rendition when using Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking all met my expectations.
This unplanned session at the Gage Park Tropical Greenhouse expanded my understanding of what is possible with the M.Zuiko 150-600 mm f/5-6.3 IS telephoto zoom lens.
The M.Zuiko 150-600 is actually an excellent choice when photographing flowers in public gardens and greenhouses where the blossoms are situated at varying distances away from public walkways.
Our recent visit to the Gage Park Tropical Greenhouse reinforced how important it is to be open to photographic opportunities… even when we may question the camera gear that we have in hand at any given moment.
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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. All images were captured using Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking, each photograph utilized a stack of 15 images and a Focus Differential of 3. This is the 1,518 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.
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Hi Tom me again I do hope you are keeping well.
It’s interesting how using the ‘wrong’ lens for your photography can reveal such beautiful images.
The general opinion is obviously this is a wildlife lens but aren’t flowers a wonderful opportunity? My favourite image from this collection is the green leaf against the black background, did you spot meter this ?
Best wishes Mark
Hi Mark,
I used standard matrix metering, but I did underexpose the leaf somewhat. I used the black slider and did some very quick burning of the background to take it to black… then lightened the leaf in post.
Tom
Fabulous images with the lens you had with you. As you said I wouldn’t have thought of using the big zoom for this sort of work, but will definitely try with my 100-400 next time I take it out. Thank you for the inspiration and details of the stacking distance factor which I always think is just part of the OM magic. Looking forward to the new ebook.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your supportive comment… much appreciated.
Sometimes trying new things with a particular lens works out well… and other times not so much. I was very pleased with these results with the 150-600. A couple of weeks ago I was out with my M.Zuiko PRO 12-40 f/2.8. This was a rookie mistake on my part as I forgot to check the lens on my camera… thinking it was my PRO 12-100 f/4. I was too far from home to fix my oversight. So, I tried some Handheld In-Camera Focus Stacking with that lens anyway, and got very few useable captures. I had used my standard HHFS settings and they just didn’t work as planned. C’est la vie!
Tom