Focus stacking

This is a metallic wood boring beetle from Indonesia. It’s face is about 1/4 inch wide (6mm). The small size meant that filling the frame and maintaining complete depth of field with a typical macro lens, even at f/32, was impossible. The laws of optics have limitations. Therefore, the only way to get a picture like this was to use focus stacking. This image is a composite of 55 images, all shot in jpeg mode (there is so much data the computer has to assemble that jpegs are necessary to get this done is a reasonable amount of time and without crashing the computer). I then composited the images using the software Zerene Stacker. The lens I used was a Canon macro 35mm f/2.8 lens that fit onto a bellows, and I chose f/8 as the sharpest point on the lens. I manually moved the camera and lens on a rail in the tiniest of increments -- about 1/5 millimeter -- to focus on vertical planes on the beetle until the whole subject was included. I lit the insect with two $5 desk lamps from Walmart to maximize the sheen on the metallic exoskeleton.