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  #1  
Old 10-23-2009, 09:33 AM
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Buddy Thomason Buddy Thomason is offline
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Extreme depth of field

This project required a technique that gets talked about a lot but not used very often. The task was to document a damascus blade, the first in a series.
A flat side view wasn't much of a problem. Click to enlarge, then you may have to click on the image again to make it open fully in your browser window:

#1

I thought we were done then Josh asked for a shot looking down the blade:

#2


This one is a composite of eight separate exposures, each sharply focused on a 1/8th section of the blade, tang to tip. It's tough (impossible) to shoot that close and have depth of field deep enough to get everything in focus with a single exposure. It worked (Josh was satisfied), but it's also kind of disorienting to look at. It's as if the eye/brain is confused by the absence of something it had expected to see: those inevitable areas of variable focus in most photographs that allow the viewer to judge relative distances etc. Weird.


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Old 10-23-2009, 10:31 PM
Barbara Turner Barbara Turner is offline
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Buddy, very nice work on the Damascus blade. I would like to know why you chose to combine the 8 images versus using your tilt / shift lens? The second question is did you use Photoshop for combining the images or a dedicated program? The 3rd question is can you elaborate on your technique for taking and combining the eight images.

Thanks, Barbara


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  #3  
Old 10-28-2009, 06:40 AM
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Crazy technique! Impossible to see the merges.

Coop


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Old 10-28-2009, 11:29 PM
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Buddy Thomason Buddy Thomason is offline
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It is crazy but the truth is... I'm easily amused.

I was using my 90 mm tilt/shift lens to gain as much advantage as I could in terms of maximizing dof but it was not enough for this particular set of parameters. The closer the camera is to the subject/object the less the dof - that is the most powerful variable in the equation specific to this instance. I needed about 8 full inches of dof with the camera about 24 inches from the blade. Coop - would you confirm that even with powerful strobes and f22 aperture it's not possible to get that much dof with our typical configurations? If there's another way to create that much dof, I'd sure like to know.


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Old 05-20-2014, 03:25 PM
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The best you can do is to place the back edge of the subject to be captured near the hyperfocal distance of the lens at the f/stop and distance desired. From there, the physics of the lens dominate DoF. I doubt the 90mm t/s will get it for ya in that situation, clearly your attempts proved this.

The only option I can think of to capture the entire scene in one image is to use an inherently sharp, longer lens (200mm or 300mm prime, for example) at a considerably further distance, such that the DoF covers the subject. However, this will compress the image, changing its look in a way that may not be desirable.

I would also be wary of f/22 that close as you may introduce artifacts into the image from aperture diffraction.

I think your composite is very nicely executed, it sounds like a solid technique and wouldn't be difficult to automate in Photoshop.
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Old 10-20-2017, 02:40 AM
IsisdroGat IsisdroGat is offline
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I don't know much about the technique but the shot looks great. I like the disorienting effect it had.
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