01/20/2026
Title: Kinetic Sleep
I've started experimenting with a macro photography technique known as focus stacking, where multiple shots are taken of the same subject, each focusing on a different slice of it. The camera is mounted to a "focus rail" for this, which allows me to carefully move the rig closer to the subject at precise increments, taking a picture at each stop along the way. Those pictures are then combined in specialized software (Helicon Focus) to merge all the sharp, in-focus sections together into one image.
This is beneficial as the depth of field (how much of the subject that is in focus from front-to-back) becomes very thin, often less than a single millimeter, when shooting small subjects at macro scale. This means the camera is only able to capture a small portion of the subject in focus at a time.
Here, a series of photos were taken over a ~2 minute period while the C. D. Peterson Designs top was spinning completely stationary, speaking to it's precision and stability when given a good steady start, as any wobbles, shakes, or drifting between shots would ruin the final result. My process was to spin the top and allow it to stabilize to then properly focus on, while getting the camera in the right postion and adjusted properly.
The next step was to figuring out how far along the macro focus rail the camera needed to advance per shot, as well as how many shots were needed in total to get every part of the top in-focus from front-to-back. The camera was set to automatically take 17 shots in series, one every 7 seconds, which provided the necessary time to turn the k**b on the macro focus rail just the right amount to advance the camera forward towards the top, and then allow the rig to settle and be vibration free once I stopped touching it, before the next shot fired. After combining the images and doing a bit of color-grading, the result is about as good as I could have hoped for!
Image: 17-shot stack merged in Helicon Focus, 1/200, f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/8 flash power
Gear: Canon EOS R8 | Laowa 100mm f/2.8 Ultra Macro APO | Godox V350 flash | AK flash diffuser | NiSi NM-180 macro rail | Leofoto MBC-20 ballhead and MT-03 mini tripod
