So, what is a PhotoLift?

In one sentence it is a tool, that allows photography with an extended depth of field in Macro photography.

Well, here the longer explanation.

The big problem in Macro photography is 'depth of field', or the area in which things are in focus.

take for example this photo of a fly:

well, an ok photo and while the eyes are nicely in focus, the rest of the fly isn't.

Now, if you take a lot of photos at a different focus level and combine these with so called Image Stacking Software to one photo with a much larger depth of field.

Nice! The only problem I had, was that when I tried to take these photos, it was very difficult to focus reliably at different levels and I often forgot to take a photo each time. As a result, I didn't get the photos I wanted and I wasted a lot of time.

Ok, here comes the PhotoLift.

The idea was to build a computer controlled lift, which lifts the object in predefined steps towards my camera and then triggers the camera.

More about this on the History page