Macro Photography - F22 Is LOADS ... Right?

Depth of field considerations between macro and portrait photographers are often quite the opposite of each other.

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I'm in the process of sifting through thousands of old macro shots that didn't make the grade. Most of them will be deleted, and I might save a handful on second consideration.

While many portrait shooters want ultra thin DOF to separate their subjects from the background, the physics of macro photography mean there is often a struggle to get more depth of field. Take the shot below for example, a Senetti flower shot at F22 on a full frame sensor. (SOOC)

When zoomed in to 100%, we can see the depth of field is still a tiny sliver, and not quite enough to do this beautiful flower justice. One might like the aesthetics of a more "dreamy look", but for commercial or archival purposes, this thin sliver of sharpness probably won't cut it. Nor would it be enough to license the photograph on most stock websites.

There are various (compromises) ways to overcome this problem, such as:

• Shooting more "face on" to the flower.
• Using a cropped sensor camera or shooting a wider frame and cropping later.
• Stopping the lens down further, such as F29 or F32.
• Taking multiple shots and "focus stacking" them later.

Certainly no single solution is perfect for all situations, but personally, in hindsight, I believe I would have been better off shooting a slightly wider frame, and cropping. The 24 megapixels of the D750 may have granted me a crop down to around 15 megapixels, with more DOF, and still plenty of resolution.

One further note, smaller apertures will show you how mucky your sensor is. As you can see below, my D750 is in need of a service!

Thanks for visiting. Your comments, upvotes, and resteems are all very welcome.