We have several very large Crocosmia plants in the back yard. They have been blooming gloriously for the last few weeks, and I thought I had better bring some blossoms in for macrophotography before they are gone.
Most of the blossoms have already turned into seeds; some example are visible at lower left. These are the last few blossoms on this stalk—you can see the stages they go through:
One full blossom ready to be pollinated at center front
A slightly withered blossom to its left
A collapsing blossom behind those three
Attachment points where previous blossoms have already dropped off.
Technical info: The RAW files that were combined to make this image were shot with the super-sharp Schneider-Krueznach 120mm f/5.6 Macro lens on the Phase One. I exported TIFF files from the originals with no adjustments at 50% of full size. I didn’t want to overwhelm Affinity Photo with the full-size 100 megapixel images.
The exported files were combined in ‘slabs’ (macro talk for groups) of 9 images each; one of those images was a repeat of the last image of the previous group to make sure of good continuity in the final merge. The six slabs were then combined into the image above, with some manual cleanup where the automated software made some minor poor decisions.
The end result is an image in which the depth of focus is much larger than the individual images.
Here is a single image (there were 48 total) showing how little is in focus in each image; this is image #1, and only the tip of a petal is in focus.
I usually work with a precision stage to take the photos, but I didn’t want to take the time to get all of that equipment set up and calibrated for a single sequence, so I took the 48 shots by hand. It was pretty easy, and didn’t take too long: take a frame, move focus 6 mid-size steps, take next picture.