Hi all!
Longtime lurker here, I'm more active on the r/AncientCoins subreddit but I thought it's about time I start posting over here too.
So this is where my hobbies of collecting
ancient coins and macrophotography crosses over in a big way. I've long been "stacking" my coin photos but I've been experimenting with
"stack and stitch" recently.
For those unfamiliar with the terms, "stacking" is where you have a smaller depth of
field than required to capture your subject in focus in a single photo, so you take multiple photos of the subject at slightly different distances and merge them together with
software. This results in a single photo with the entire subject in focus. "Stitching" on the other hand is similar to taking a panorama: you capture different parts of the subject in each photo and use
software to stitch them together to end up with one photo of your whole subject.
The two methods can be combined to achieve a very high level of detail. Usually I shoot coins at around 1x magnification so the whole coin is in frame, but with stitching I can shoot smaller parts of the coin at 2x magnification and combine them into one large image. Add stacking to the equation and you can ensure you end up with an entire coin in focus at 2x magnification.
This is what I attempted recently on my
Fel Temp coin, the result is an 168megapixel photo of each
side. You can see the results at the link below and make sure to zoom all the way in!
https://www.easyzoom.com/imageaccess/a46741e4d62f4bb0a0eeb4a02cd1f7acFor reference, this is what the
reverse looks like using only "stacking" at 1x magnification:
https://www.easyzoom.com/imageaccess/0bf7ebd26c66449fa5fce6fdc7a76eb6