Recently I have been thinking a bit about combining shots to achieve a greater depth of field. When I noticed that some of the shots I took today of a spider with its prey were similar but had different parts in focus, I decided to give it a try. The following is the end result.
![](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3200/2834732758_78ca9973cf_o.jpg" width="533" height="800" alt="spider_composite" /></a>)
Continue for more on how I did this.
While taking pictures of insects yesterday at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, I noticed that they had lots of pretty things on the plants that sometimes the bugs would crawl on. As most of you know, I spend most of my macro efforts taking pictures of insects, but the major reason for that until recently has been the fact that the MP-E 65 isn’t the greatest lens for flowers. Many flowers do not need 1:1 magnification so the MP-E 65 was often too close. This is not the case with the 180L. Therefore I put away my flash and took out my tripod and attempted a few flower shots.
![](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3078/2569062863_aa3c743e5e_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="IMG_1758" /></a>)
This is a cranesbill flower, related to geraniums. The interesting thing when taking this picture was I had the opportunity to use a rather shallow depth of field. I kind of like the effect here. One can still make out the leaves but the stem is not visible. I could blur the leaves more in Photoshop, but I rather like the effect out of the camera. I took this at f/5 – which I wouldn’t dare think of for most insects.