Still Life and Helicon Focus

Dundee Marmalade and Tea (Monochrome), originally uploaded by bmthomas.

For a recent Camera Club Contest with the theme of Still Life, I created this photo.

I used a SB800 Camera right high though white umbrella with black backdrop triggered remotely via Nikon CLS.

I shot five shots focusing on first the teacup, then the flower, then the marmalade jar, then the top left and right corners of the frame. I used Helicon Focus to put all of these photos together into one phot where everything was in focus. This gave me much better depth of field.

I did have a minor problem where the top right of the frame was crooked. I used Photoshop to correct by Transform->skew.

Finally I converted to monochrome using Lightroom 2.

Here is the setup Shot.

I entered this in the Arundel Camera Club Unlimited Monochrome Still Life Competition on 02/11/2009 and won Fourth Place.