There are a number of stacking applications out there, but what sets Zerene Stacker apart is its ability to align photos.  This is critical for insect photography as most photos are hand held.  This means that the chances that they will perfectly align are practically nil.

Zerene Stacker is extremely easy to use, though it does contain an impressive list of options.  It also contains a very powerful retouching feature that allows one to explain from which image to take different parts of the final image.  This is extremely useful in a number of cases, though with care I have found that it is often not necessary.  Typically I use the retouching feature when I specifically do not want a particular part of the final image to be in focus.  Often this is for artistic reasons.  I want the insect to be in focus but not this part of a leaf, etc.

There’s a common expression that a picture is worth a thousand words, so without further ado I’ll show you what it can do.

The following are three unedited photos of a stink bug I took recently.

As you can see, each of these images has a different part in focus.  The image at the top has only the antenna in focus.  The image in the middle has the face and the front of the body in focus, while the one on the bottom has the top of the shell.

Also note that they are not completely aligned.  In particular the bottom image is quite a bit off.  Nevertheless, I brought all three of these images into Zerene Stacker and then stacked them using PMax.  The following is the result, which also includes some post processing to make the shot a bit more interesting.

As you can see, most of the stink bug is now in focus.  The entire post processing for this photo, including the following, took only a few minutes.

1. 1) Stack the photos using Zerene Stacker.
2. 2) Exposure and slight contrast change in Lightroom.
3. 3) Tonal contrast (to insect only) using Nik Color Efex in Photoshop CS5.
4. 4) Removed dust spots.

This shot would not have been possible to take otherwise – there is simply too much depth of field (the original shots were all taken at f11).

One other small point to note is you can see at the very bottom of the shot that there is a part that looks slightly different.  This effect is an unfortunate side effect that occurs when Zerene Stacker aligns the photos.  To combat this issue you need to try to take the shots as aligned as possible.  Also, make sure that no important visual elements are on the edges.  Usually, I just crop this part out but if I feel it is important I will just use content aware fill in CS5 – which does a good job with these.

Of course, it can still be tricky to get several workable shots that can then be combined with Zerene Stacker.  One must pay particular attention to the parts of the insect in the shot.  As one moves in closer or farther to focus on a nearer or further part of the insect, very often part of the insect will leave the frame.  The trick is to still keep the same parts of the insect in the frame while changing the area of focus.

This technique is even more important at higher magnifications.  Due to diffraction at high magnifications, if you need a very high quality shot you will need to stop down quite a bit.  On a 5D2, the MP-E 65 does show diffraction at 5x at f11.  This can be noticed on an 8×10 shot, though not enough to overly detract from the shot.  If one needs to crop the shot though or create larger prints, then the lens will need to be stopped down to f5.6.  At this aperture, the DOF is miniscule and focus stacking is a necessity.

For these reasons, I believe Zerene Stacker is an essential tool for any serious insect photographer.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Recently while attempting (unsuccessfully) to photograph several water striders in a pond, I came across several ants that appeared to be swimming in the water.  Well, it didn’t look exactly like they were swimming as they certainly had a tough time of it – but likewise they did not appear to be drowning.  So can ants swm?

After noticing this phenomenon, I was rather curious whether ants can swim and whether they regularly do so.  For the most part, they don’t.  However, recently scientist have found a species that can actually swim and does so in the mangrove forests of northern Australia.

While ants can’t actually swim, most of them do float.  For this reason, it is rather difficult to drown an ant.  My six year old can attest to this as he has already tried to do this numerous times with the carpenter ants that used to inhabit our backyard.

The two ants that I took the time to photograph floundered quite a bit in the water.  They moved their legs rapidly but didn’t really seem to make any progress.  Nevertheless, they did not appear to be in any danger of drowning.  I am not exactly sure how they wound up in the water in the first place, but my suspicion is they were on a leaf or thin branch on a tree above that then fell in the water – or perhaps they blew off of one of the tall blades of grass near the water.

The first ant I photographed eventually reached land and climbed up and went on its way.  The second ant was still floundering in the water when I left.  I was a bit curious whether one of the nearby water striders would attack it, but they scattered quickly from the area when I approached.  Water striders are extremely difficult to photograph up close because they can obviously sense tiny vibrations.  They also seem to have rather good eyesight and to date I have only been able to photograph them using longer lenses.

Still, I did not see them attack either of the ants.  It is difficult to say whether they were scared of me or felt an ant would have been too difficult of a prey, or more likely I didn’t spent enough time waiting.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

My goal with this shot was to emphasize the legs coming right out at you – as if they harvestman were about to grab you.  I created several versions of this shot, but this one I like the best – with the body of the harvestman just visible behind. 

For those not familiar with our friend the harvestman, they are not spiders.  They are arachnids, but are in the order Opiliones while spiders are in the order Araneae.  Of course, for the squeamish that isn’t very important.  Most people know the harvestman by the common name “daddy long legs".

In this shot, I tried to emphasize more the geometry of the harvestman.  I spent some time trying to get the legs at the correct angle to form a triangle with the two upper corners.  This is the closest I got.  This particular shot is also a focus stack of two images.  The image wasn’t taken as a panorama – but was cropped to remove some distracting elements from the picture.

This shot is a bit closer to my everyday shots of harvestmen.  I wasn’t too crazy initially with the lighting of this shot as it is one case where I would have preferred to use a tripod and a long exposure to get rid of the black background caused by the flash.  However in this case I warmed up to the lighting as I like the emphasis on the right foot.  There’s actually a very small drop at the end of it that I think is rather cool.

In the future I plan to continue to experiment with harvestmen – coming up with even more original shots.  I hope this will become a common experiment with critters that I have already photographed quite a bit – such as spiders and pill bugs.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It isn’t difficult to find mites whenever taking macro shots.  They are everywhere and you really just have to turn over a leaf that is decaying on the ground to find one.  Photographing one, though.  Well that’s a different story.

Complicating getting a good photo of one of these little buggers are two things.

1) They are extremely small.  The shot above was taken at 5x – and even then I cropped it.

2) They move rather quickly and do not sit still

About a week ago, though, after not finding much anything else to photograph that day, I decided to take my chances.

I spent a good twenty minutes tracking this little mite as it wandered across this leaf.  Most of my shots were blurry – it isn’t easy tracking something at 5x – but unlike past attempts I kept at it and got some decent ones.

Of course, I have absolutely no idea what species this is.  As there are over 45,000 described species of mites and scientists estimate this makes up about 5% of the total species out there, I’m not going to try very hard to figure it out.  Mites are arachnids – just like spiders.  However, they’re not spiders – but are related.

Another interesting fact is that one of the strongest animals on earth is a mite.  It can carry 1182 times its own weight.  I did a quick search on what that would mean, and it’s roughly equivalent to one of us picking up this boat.  Remind me if I’m ever reincarnated as something extremely small, to not mess with a mite.

Of course, most of us know mites as garden pests or waste bin pests.  I doubt this particular one is of any concern as I found it by a trail near my office.  I strongly suspect that these particular mites have a big part in the decomposition of leaves and creation of soil.  In that respect, they’re probably partners (or predators) of our friend the springtail.

So what are the lessons I learned from my little pal the mite?  Well, for one when faced with a difficult subject – take lots of shots.  Also, just because something is difficult doesn’t mean with some patience it’s not possible.  I had numerous opportunities to photograph these in the past, but didn’t bother to have the patience until now.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This shot was taken a few months ago by the ponds outside my office.  I spent some time photographing one stink bug and when I found another on a different leaf – I figured – why not?

They stayed together for about thirty seconds – but this was long enough to get a decent shot.  They didn’t seem too offended by one another – but soon went their separate ways.

Stink bugs are one of my favorite insects to photograph as they are so colorful.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

From some research on the Internet, I believe this is Tetramorium caespitum, or the standard pavement ant.  They are famous for getting in fights with other colonies, though I do not believe that is what is occurring here.

They are distinguishable from the two spines on its back, which you can see from this shot.  Of course, they are so tiny in real life that you need a good magnifying glass to be able to see them well.

  I took a number of shots of the colony, though I didn’t have a lot of time to stick around there.  It was right next to my work and I felt a bit funny laying on the ground getting these photos while my coworkers were walking by!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Still, it was a welcome sight to find some aphids in the wild this weekend while shooting near some ponds that are next to the building where I work.

This one in particular is very colorful, although I am not 100% sure it is an aphid.  It almost looks like a little lobster!  Unfortunately I could not find a good identity for it in my literature or online.  I suspect that it does not venture into our gardens very often and therefore to the vast majority of people is uninteresting.  If anyone has an idea about this one I would be very appreciative.

On future outings I think I will take a guide to Northwest plant life.  Many insects reside/feed on specific types of plants and if I know the type of plant then I may have a better idea about the type of the critter.  Of course, plant identification isn’t easy but I do have a book that covers the native plants in this area fairly well.

Just as I was packing up, I found this one on my camera bag.

This one is much more similar to the standard garden aphids.  I have heard that only the females have wings, in which case that would make this a female.

Well, according to my kids this entry is now over as they want to play a game on the computer so…

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I found a number of these flies on a bank of yellow flowers next to a small stream.  I must admit that even after attempting to look it up, I have no idea what type of fly it is.  At first I thought it was a face fly, but according to what I read face flies are quite a bit bigger than this one.

I rather like this view of it.

Here you can clearly see that the fly is getting pollen all over it.

These photos were taken during my weekly photo shoot at some ponds next to the building where I work.  I was a bit reluctant that day to go out and shoot as I had a lot of work to do and had a lot of meetings that day, but I was quite glad that I did! (and yes I finished my work too)

Sometimes it is very nice to just force yourself to go out there and shoot.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A little bit of research at bugguide.net revealed that these are baby orb weaver spiders.  Everywhere around the stairs they were spinning webs.  They were crawling on the ground and a few of them even tried to create a nest on my camera!  Of course, I couldn’t resist getting a closer look at them.

The kids got a big kick out of watching them, though Nelya was freaked out.  While we were watching them some of them even began spinning webs on us!  Of course they are harmless, but try telling my wife that.

  Here is a shot of one as it spun its web.  I also decided to get an even closer look at one for identification sake.

Of course, the vast majority of these baby spiders will not live to see a few days.  Numerous predators were waiting for them and the odds of survival are not that great.  Of the hundreds of baby spiders, perhaps only a couple will make it to adulthood.  Here is one that didn’t make it – victim to an awaiting spider (I think it is a sac spider).

Each of these spiders will likely eat several of the babies over the day and are just one of the dangers they will face during their first several weeks.

I also could not resist taking the opportunity to take my first video with the MP-E 65!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Although aphids stay rather still for most shots, they are not one of the easier insects to photograph.  For one, they are extremely small and often require a magnification of 5x for a good shot.  This means that the viewfinder is extremely dark and the lens is shaky.  The also do move, so tracking can be slightly tricky at times.

Here is an aphid family portrait.

Amazingly, an adult ladybug can eat up to sixty of these a day!  I am currently looking for some lady bugs, as Nelya prefers that the aphids stay away from her roses, but I won’t let her use insecticides on them.

While they certainly aren’t a beneficial insect, they do provide some amusement!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.