[Leica] Still Life

[Jayanand Govindaraj]

After twiddling my thumbs for a few days after the lock down started here
in India, I decided to teach myself focus stacking, and shoot some still
life compositions at home. Luckily, the Nikon Z7 has an automatic focus
stacking feature built in, which they call "Focus Shift". After due
experimentation to learn how the settings affect the final output, I
decided to start. These are some of my initial efforts. Most of these
required blending of 10 -20 images. The camera used was Nikon Z7 with the
Nikkor Z24-70mm f4S kit lens. and the software used was Lightroom
Classic/Helicon Focus/Photoshop CC. I first tried blending in Photoshop,
but found that regularly introduced artifacts, so I purchased Helicon
Focus, which is really on a different level altogether for blending a
series of photographs. The first four submissions are blended with
Photoshop CC, and the last four with Helicon Focus.

First up I started with some oranges and newspapers:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/FS/fs12-20200409-032.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/FS/fs13-20200409-017.jpg.html

Then I tried my hand at more traditional fare:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/FS/FS-20200406-075.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/FS/FS1-20200405-005.jpg.html

Three variations, both in terms of viewing angle as well as formats, with
much the same props:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/FS/2020-04-11+08-50-02+_B_Radius8_Smoothing4_.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/FS/2020-04-11+09-14-55+_B_Radius8_Smoothing4_.jpg.html

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/FS/2020-04-11+09-36-02+_B_Radius8_Smoothing4_.jpg.html

Finally, some design and product classics from Europe (Luis should
recognize the camera!). Painting by my granddaughter when she was 4 years
old:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/FS/2020-04-10+15-56-14+_B_Radius8_Smoothing4_.jpg.html

Please see LARGE.

Comments and Criticism, as ever, welcome.

Cheers
Jayanand