Macro At Home With Just One Light (Tutorial with focus stacking workflow)

This week's easy macro photography tutorial includes the settings and lighting I use to take close up images of a dried flower. I show how I take the shot using focus bracketing and how I focus stack the files in Lightroom and Helicon Focus to get a sharp finished image.
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[@ChrisHunt4497]

Love your At Home projects. ❤

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thank you, I'm very glad someone does!

[@adriannolan6711]

Another brilliant video Andrew. I’m learning a lot from these videos and I’m certainly going to be investing in helicon. Thanks a million

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thanks for watching, much appreciated! It's definitely worth the money if you want to do bigger image stacks. Photoshop simply can't handle anything beyond 4 or 5 in my experience so it's good to have something dedicated to doing one thing really well. Good luck!

[@adriannolan6711]

@@AndrewLanxonPhotography thanks a million for that. I did a stack with 18 shots on photoshop recently which turned out well enough but others looked like the dog barfed it up. which version of helicon would you recommend?

[@landongoff1350]

This is so inspirational. Thank you!

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thanks for watching!

[@Pseagust]

Another great video. Thanks

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thanks for watching!

[@GrahamMarsden]

Excellent as usual.

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thanks Graham, very kind!

[@BadSloucher]

It's so cool how you got the black backdrop look but it looks grey in the video! I cannot wait to try this!

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thanks! It'd look black if that back wall was white, as long as I'm angling the light in the right direction. Doing the direct overhead with that little softbox just meant that zero light fell on the backdrop and and my camera settings to adjust for the highlights of the light, so everything else fell to shadow. It gives a super moody look and I love it!

[@daemon1143]

Creating a black background without a black background is pretty much the pro way to do it. If you use an actual black background and let light spill on it, it will always look worse and need more cleanup and editing, than if you get your black by controlling your light and exposure. It's a great technique. Give it a go. Just stop down until the whole scene is dead black, and then control the light on your subject. The further away the background is, the easier it is to manage light spill.

[@kenhenley7599]

Very helpful. Thanks a lot. Cheers. Ken

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thanks Ken!

[@peterc2248]

Lovely vid Andrew. Very warm today here in Essex so I jumped on my motorbike and rode 30 miles to spend the day taking photos. So excited! Got to location and guess what - no camera in bag...arrrgghh - lesson learned :-)

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Wow that's quite the slip up! I've gone out many times without SD cards but not sure I've left my camera behind!

[@peterc2248]

@@AndrewLanxonPhotography I know, I know:-). In my defence - sort of - I recently switched to a lighter kit in a smaller bag to fit my topbox. There were some choice words spoken to myself :-)

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

@peterc2248 oh I can imagine, I've certainly had words with myself when I've driven out on location ready to shoot and realised I can't do anything!

[@usernamemykel]

@@AndrewLanxonPhotography In my haste to macro outdoors, I put my flash into the hotshoe backwards - end of flash, (apparently shorted out), and a very quick end to the photo session!

[@susanfirth2279]

Great video/tutorial. I've just discovered my R7 has in camera focus stacking including the final stacked image in JPG. Must try it out. You make it seem so easy.

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thank you! My advice would be to use the focus bracketing in camera but then doing the actual photo merge yourself in post. The in-camera merge often doesn't do a great job and you have no control over which images it includes so you have to be careful to only take shots of areas you DEFINITELY want to be in focus. Good luck!

[@TimvanderLeeuw]

That flower looks great. When I do focus stacking, usually I first edit a little bit in CaptureOne to bring in the highlights, boost the shadows a bit to be sure that no information is lost in the export to TIFF format. I might also look at white balance. Then after I finish focus stacking I do my actual edits on the result of stacking. Certainly anything with layers that makes exporting heavier, I rather do that on one single image than on all images in a stack! A big reason for me to do just minor editing before and real editing after focus stacking, is that often I find it easier to judge the effect of edits on the stacked image rather than just one of the frames, where a lot of not in focus that should be in the final image.

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

That does sound like a perfect solution. How many images do you usually have in your stacks?

[@TimvanderLeeuw]

@@AndrewLanxonPhotography The number of images in a stack depends, really. Often between 40 and 70, occasionally over 100.

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Ah well that's a much better way to work with such a big stack load then! Do you do most of your post work in capture one?

[@TimvanderLeeuw]

@@AndrewLanxonPhotography Yes, I mostly use CaptureOne. Sometimes I use DxO PhotoLabs, and occasionally for more complex edits I use Affinity Photo, but I'm not very proficient (yet) with that.

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

I don't use capture one enough. I have it and occasionally I dive into it, especially if I'm tethered with my camera for a product shoot, but otherwise I stick with lightroom. I haven't heard great things about Affinity from people I know who've tried it but I think it's a more affordable alternative to photoshop

[@chriscard6544]

awesome

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thanks Chris!

[@enzoog9986]

Ein sehr schönes Video!

[@brendamilstein1062]

Thanks for sharing I just loved seeing your process. I have a nikon d500 so not so easy but I definitely want to try some macro photography

[@duringthemeanwhilst]

nice one 🙂 been doing loads of indoor macro lately due to weather and health not being the best. I have to stop my wife from throwing flowers out, and only last week I'd left some figs completely rot on the kitchen windowsill much to her disgust I'm firmly in the stack first and edit after camp 🙂 I just think that sometimes dealing with say 100 focus bracketed images it seems the more logical way to go.

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

You're absolutely right, when you're dealing with a big stack that absolutely makes sense to do it that way round. What else have you found to photograph indoors?

[@duringthemeanwhilst]

@@AndrewLanxonPhotography bizarrely just today I photographed a large number of feathers from our budgie after he had a moult!! they made for a lovely, soft and surreal image. it's something I'll definitely be repeating 🙂 I've also just got into Lego Technics and they provide for some interesting images.

[@scarcesense6449]

I've never noticed any difference but I have an instinct that applying any highlights and sharpening will give the stacking software the best chance to know what it is trying to focus on. Then again, it could give false positives or introduce artifacts that would be much easier to minimise/remove if you were only doing the editing after the stack. So, yeah, I have no idea either...

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Welcome to my wonderful world of indecision!

[@daemon1143]

Very wabi sabi, I like it. You also answered my question about why bother with Helicon, taa. With respect to editing before or after stacking: If you are going to have Helicon output a tiff, then at least doing your exposure corrections on the RAW before stacking will give you more latitude than trying to do them on tiff. If you're getting Helicon to output a DNG, then theoretically you still have full flexibility on exposure, however, it would probably be better to apply your camera matching colour profile before.

[@doogieham]

Very inspiring, Andrew as usual. I love your indoor studio videos! I really appreciate how you take the viewer through the entire process from set up to final image processing. BTW, I’m not finding the link to your light. Did I miss it somewhere?

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Thanks so much! I hope it's helpful to anyone whether they're a beginner or more experienced to see all steps, rather than just show a bit and expect people to fill in the blanks. You're right, I forgot to include a link to it. It's the Zhiyun Molus X100 and it's about 200 on amazon I think. Not super cheap but I've found it a great small light to use at home.

[@doogieham]

Thanks Andrew. I'll check it out.@@AndrewLanxonPhotography

[@tonybongo1122]

Great video. What lamp are you using to light the flower ?

[@trakuen]

What clips attachment are you using?

[@joshnelson3344]

Great video! I’m just curious, why don’t you lower the ISO and slow down your shutter speed to compensate?

[@usernamemykel]

Exposure triangle knowledge, that's how.

[@57d]

Anther and filament comprise the stamen which is the pollen-producing organ, and then the stigma, style and ovary comprise the pistil which is the reproductive organ.

[@youphototube]

Andrew...help! I am considering getting either the Modus X100 or the new X60. I prefer the form factor of the X60 as I want to try mounting it on a magic arm with a diffuser to try mobile fixed light macro focus bracketing with my OM-1. The X60 looks more compact/mountable. Question is do you think there is enough output in the X60? I guess that would be the X100 on about 60%. I also like doing off camera photography as in your latest content. Can you tell me what power output you were using to light the dry flower. Oh, fantastic results.

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Hmm good question. I don't think there's that much size/weight difference between the x100 and x60 so I'd personally opt for the more powerful one so you have the extra performance if you need it. The x100 is very easy to put on any bracket as it weighs so little. I don't remember the exact setting I had it at but it wasn't at full power. Maybe about 75 percent. I hope that helps!

[@youphototube]

​@AndrewLanxonPhotography Thank you, Andrew, I think I will go for the 100x. I probably will not use it much camera mounted. I have been experimenting with my Fenix torch (3000 lumins) and Godox bare bulb difuser and magic arm for field work insect species ID. It is OK for some subjects but prone to hot spots. A wider beam with larger difuser will work better.

[@kristijanignjatovski4415]

Andrew, focus stucking and focus bracketing , is the same thing? Exp: I have cognisys reil for photo stucking and if I get r5 which has bracketing , would I get the same photo?

[@fotiss8883]

The only thing i noticed with the way i do it is, if you stack first and then edit then you lose the ability to do fine adjustments with your white balance. I figured that one out by making that mistake

[@youphototube]

If you export and import your files to Helicon as TIFF then edit before. If you export and import as DNG, then edit the stacked image afterwards. In fact, Helicon will only accept unedited DNG files. If you edit your DNG images before exporting to Helicon, Helicon will ignore the edits. I find it best to work in DNG, not TIFF.

[@usernamemykel]

Why didn't you stack them in the camera?

[@AndrewLanxonPhotography]

Because in-camera stacking is almost never as good as doing it with dedicated software -- software that also allows you to refine the stack further should you need to, which the in-camera version would not allow.

[@usernamemykel]

@@AndrewLanxonPhotography That's pretty much in agreement with others. However, software post processing can be a steep learning curve (and expensive) for the "occassional" shooter. Many thanks for your response, Andrew - it's much appreciated.