www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

A couple more 'Blue' eggs. The Adonis took an hour of 'female watching' - I found the SB in the first head of Kidney Vetch examined .
Tony M.

Fantastic shots Tony excellent dof on the small blue ova.

Excellent results! I notice that you use 'focus stacking'. Do you use a focus slide, or just change the focus on the lens, and how many shots do you take. I'm interested in trying this method myself.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Sorry for the late reply - I have been in the Dolomites (more later.. ).

I use a Nikon Plan 10x objective on a wide open Sigma 105 macro. The egg is set on a Newport stage and moved with a micrometer screw - about 2 thou per shot. Natural light, if possible, with a home made foil reflector. Anything from about 20 to 150 shots put through a Zerene Stacker (absolutely brilliant and very intuitive, which it would need to be for me to use it ). It's a bit hit and miss to start with, but it gets easier as you go on. I used to use a ring flash and polystyrene cup diffuser, but found it difficult to get the WB right. As long as you can get an exposure of around a twentieth, it seems OK. On of the difficulties is lining the camera and object accurately, so that the egg does not track across the frame as it is moved. Always check that before you start shooting. Have a look at www.photomacrography.net for advice on just about any aspect of this stuff.
Look forward to seeing some results.

Tony.

Thank you for the detailed response. I've read several good reports for the Zerene software, so will download the 30-day trial.

Mike