Helicon Focus

Christmas Balls (Helicon Focus)
Originally uploaded by bmthomas

Setup: I used a green geled Metz 48 behind and below the table at 1/4 power bounced off of a black background. I have a SB800 on a stand through a white umbrella camera left at 1/10 power. The gold ball is much more reflective than the red and green. I had a gold reflector on the right. Flashes triggered via Nikon CLS.

So the challenge with this shot it that I could focus on the gold ball but the red and green balls were out of focus due to the limited depth of field.

or I could focus on the green ball but the gold and red balls were out of focus. This was probably the best of the three images.

Finally I could focus on the red ball but the gold and green balls were out of focus.

During a recent photo contest at the Bowie-Crofton Camera Club, the Judge Tony Sweet suggested that I could have used a program called Helicon Focus to put together a series of photos each one taken focusing on a a different part of the scene to create a final image that had greater depth of field.

So I downloaded a trial of Helicon Focus to put these three photographs together and create the final image which shows all three Christmas balls in focus.

Of course you need to shoot each shot from a tripod and manually focus. I was a little curious how Helicon would handle my hand held reflector on the right. Looks like it did a good job.