Macro Cactus Flower

Up close and personal with the pointy end of the cactus as well.

My wife Donna has several blooming cacti around the house. I have been trying to take casual photos of this particular one for more than a year—I’ve been too lazy to do what it really required, which is to set up the entire potted plant on my macro setup out in the garage.

Finally, I bit the bullet and took the time to capture the tiny flowers. A focus merge of 34 images, each one after a movement of 0.78mm, which gives me a bit of overlapping focus between images.

Here’s the central portion of the image enlarge, but not yet full resolution:

And here’s a look at full resolution:

For reference, the flower is no more than a quarter inch across.

Photographed with the Phase One camera back, an Actus rail system, and a lens taken from a high-end Nikon scanner and converted to the Actus system with some doo-dads.