Stacking the Leaves | Show Me Nature Photography

Today’s post features a couple of focus-stacked images I captured last week during peak fall colors around the Lake of the Ozarks, in south-central Missouri.

Focus-stacking is a technique I really like to employ when capturing close-up images, or macro images. Using a shallow depth of field, I capture multiple images, varying the focusing point on the subject, with each image captured. Then using focus-stacking software (I use HeliconFocus), I stitch all images together. This results in an image that has more depth in focus, while still maintaining a good, out-of-focus background to the image.

Both of today’s images were captured along a trail in Ha Ha Tonka State Park, located on the southern edge of the Lake of the Ozarks:

And by moving the tripod just a foot or so, this next image was captured, that gives a little different mood to the scene:

Photographic Equipment Used:

• Canon 5D Mark 3 camera body
• Canon 180mm, f/3.5 macro lens
• Bogen 3021 tripod, with ballhead
• ISO 200
• Aperture f/3.5
• Shutter 1/90 sec. and 1/125 sec.