Show your self made bug home / Insect Hotel

[Ron (Netherlands)]

There must be quite some LF-ers here who are little (or big) wood-choppers as well....I'm not actually, but few weeks ago started tinkering with some wood boards which were laying in my garden shed. I had no actual layout for this but had seen some in a garden store. The wood came from old pallets which I cut to small boards for my outdoor heater :-)
Thought it would be a nice object to tryout on LF.


Insect hotel - Bug house - 10x15 flatfilm by Ron (Netherlands), on Flickr

It was not shot with the best camera for this purpose since the Ica Palmos has no extra bellows extension and no swing/shift to get a better DOF.
To get close I had to use a diopter screwed on the Tessar.

[Bob Salomon]

Very nice, but swings and tilts can not give you more DOF, they control the plane of sharp focus, aperture controls DOF. Shifts do not control DOF either, they control image placement.

If you want the most DOF then you have to focus on a point so that the DOF runs from in front of the subject to behind it. For most applications this is a point 1/3rd in front of the subject and the DOF will run from there to 2/3rd beyond the subject. In macro it will run 50% in both directions.

[Ron (Netherlands)]

Very nice, but swings and tilts can not give you more DOF, they control the plane of sharp focus, aperture controls DOF. Shifts do not control DOF either, they control image placement.

If you want the most DOF then you have to focus on a point so that the DOF runs from in front of the subject to behind it. For most applications this is a point 1/3rd in front of the subject and the DOF will run from there to 2/3rd beyond the subject. In macro it will run 50% in both directions.

Thank you BOB, indeed I meant actually the plane of focus, since the camera was not standing perpendicular in front of the bug house, so therefore only little sharpness in the plane of focus.

[Pere Casals]

For most applications this is a point 1/3rd in front of the subject and the DOF will run from there to 2/3rd beyond the subject. In macro it will run 50% in both directions.

A good recipe, something to remember.