A huge advance in the detail quality of some types of modern digital photography. The above is a 1280x1024 100% pixels, aesthetic crop from my full image UM03786-04, 5500x4100 at 100% pixels. Tomorrow will post a second crop from the same image with a favorite of humans insect. Then a bit later will post a downsized for web full version of the same image. Then will explain what focus bracketing does that is making my work much more productive versus formerly doing so manually over 8 years with my 24mp Sony a6000.
Notice how sharp the image is at 100% pixels. An 8k display is 3960x 7920 pixels so my camera's shorter dimension is a good immersive fit for an 8k display as long as the lens is sharp. I'll shoot either F5.0 or F8.0 and tend to use F5.0 mainly for landscapes.
Was shot at San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, at 8:53am Thursday April 18, 2024. Sun through 32 inch diffusion disk. Can only shoot successfully outdoors during moments of calm so am attentive to a day's wind forecasts. Camera atop a Benbo Trekker tripod plus ball head with a Bluetooth RF remote shutter release to reduce camera vibration. Those are beads of evaporating water from the overnight watering.
My a6700 has a 26mp sensor, 3:2 aspect, of 6192 by 4128 pixels. My Sigma 56mm DC DNS APS-C lens is an exceptionally sharp prime, near flat resolution frame edge to edge. Used the Focus Bracket function at F8.0 that made 18 shots. Post processed with Zerene Stacker and Photoshop CS6.
Ok, here is the second 1280x1024 100% pixels, aesthetic crop from that same image showing a lady bug, probably looking to eat a breakfast of aphids. Later today will add a downsized version of the whole image. And yes I was back at the rose garden again this morning and captured a few more subjects as we had yet another early morning with brief periods of dead calm I need to Focus Bracket without having to deal with misregistration between images I need to post process blend together. Of course, this Monday 4/22/2024 is also Earth Day this year so was nice to actually get outdoors among so much beauty at our large municipal rose garden where roses are exploding from buds all over.
Now one can see where the 2 above crops were taken from and appreciate the considerable resolution in the full image that one will not otherwise achieve with any digital cameras regardless of cost, with a single shot capture at any given aperture. All my serious work since 2015 has involved focus stack blending as have been expecting to eventually publicly exhibit my large body of landscape and nature work viewed up close using large 8k displays that are 7920 by 3960 pixels. Note, I have been multi column row frame stitching images using a panoramic tripod head as well.
When other photographers that never focus stack begin looking at my work and compare that to what their own images look like on such displays, even though their primary subjects within image frames may appear just as sharp, they will also notice soft areas that when blown up to large sizes, don't view well at near distances. Although on camera sites like dpreview, there is endless discussion about camera and lens resolution, the vast majority never appreciated what focus stack blending offered, mainly because such is not obvious just looking at Internet web images. Will add more about the current state of in camera focus bracketing.
This is another subject, UM04663-70.jpg, I shot at the rose garden yesterday morning 4/22/2024, of a small tree with blooming white 4 petal flowers up against the blue sky. Cropped off some of the width to 4600 by 4100 pixels from my full a6700 6192 by 4128 full sensor size. Required just 8 Focus Bracket shots from maybe 15 feet away below at F8.0.
And here again is a 100% pixels crop.
Unlike the first image, UM03786-04.jpg, this is not a close-up and there was a slight breeze causing a bit of slight misregistration between some shots. That causes multiple images and blur of same elements, though was easily fixed in Zerene Stacker by just painting in a single shot in locations where say 3 overlayed shots resulted. On my Sigma 56mm prime lens, F4.5 to F5.6 apertures are sharpest according to lens testing reports so tend to use F5.0 to Focus Bracket if a subject has no moving elements and F8.0 if just slight movements because with more magnification, post processing artifacts are more likely to occur.
