YUVAL VAKNIN
Extreme Macro Photography

I’m macro and an extreme macro photographer and I’m specialized in focus stacking photography I’m learning it with many days of experiments and practice. Focus stacking is not only to get amazing closeups of bugs feces.. It’s also used to shoot special, unique drops reflections with unique ideas inside the drops I’m shooting.
Focus stacking is a technique I’m using to shoot very small object that have a very big depth of field when using 6 or 9 extension tubes!.. Yes, it’s very small depth of field and that’s why I’m using focus rail and shooting around 20 to 50 pictures, each picture has its own different focused area and when I attach all of them together I’m getting one picture with focus all the way inside…
The most challenging part of this kind of photography is to success.. Most of times you can shoot 20-50 frames and only on your PC you can see, you missed some focus area and you need to shoot all over again and again. When I shoot extreme macro of a bug face with focus stacking technic I must find a dead bug so it won’t move between the shooting sets 🙂
I’m using around 6 to 9 extension tubes to get the bug very close in my frame, and because it’s so many extension tubes I need to place the lens on books or something so my camera won’t brake of the lens with and the end of the tubes.. Also, I’m using very strong lights to light the object because with 6-9 extension tubes you need lot’s of light to be able shooing this setup.
Shooing drops reflection, it’s more difficult because it’s very hard to find good ideas… and also the Glycerin drops has reflection of everything that’s surrounded your set you made.. Another problem is you need the Glycerin to be very cold or it will not stay on your object set.. So you need to make this focus stacking shooting very fast before the drops become warm…
The equipment I use is Canon 7D-Mark II and Canon 1DX + Canon 100L macro lens and ring less light (not flash) Also for this kind of photography I’m using tripod + Focus rail. About editing, I’m using Photoshop CS6 or Helicon focus software to add all the exposures to one photo before continuing editing it.
I’m always trying to be creative with my final results.. This is more important than just to get close up shoot. So most of the time it’s the thinking behind the photo.. It’s can take days to find a unique shoot.. It’s relaxing and taking time to finish one set of this kind of photography.

Read The full Article On Israeli Lens Magazine Issue#13 Super Macro Photography