I was intrigued and impressed by Bruce Williams spider stack and whilst recognizing that the laboured breathing and handshake that come with advancing years would prohibit such in camera aligning, I thought I would give it a try.
I do not possess PS and tried stacking 5 shots of the spider who resides in my bathroom next to his larder of harlequin ladybirds. My first align and stack using Zerene produced a spider with better than 20 legs. Discovering the less than intuitive alignment configuration in the software which allows the percentage offset on the x and y axis to be adjusted, I guessed at a value of 30%, which resulted in a photo of the spider with the appropriate number of legs.Whilst the aligning is for me less than natural I have nothing but praise for the retouching tool.
Moving onto the lichen and maintaining the 30% offset produced the kind of ghost edges that used to be the norm on 1960's televisions, a correction to 10% offset with this more solid image type gave a better result.
My final try, using a Minolta 50 mm macro just held in position in front of my Canon 500d was of the harlequin larva and attendant wildlife residing on a fence post under some sycamores. The working distance was so restricted with this set up that the ring flash was in contact with the edge of the 7cm fence post before I had anything approaching a focus. The idea, which was to try to photo a mini ecosystem, lacks the clarity I was seeking, but shows enough promise for me to be now awaiting a delivery of a 100mm macro Tokina. Don't tell the wife.
Having played around with macro for approaching 40 years, this new technique is exciting and I thank WAB and Bruce in particular for bringing it to my attention.
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