Working your angles
When taking a single shot, the trick to get the whole subject in focus is to stay with the camera, and more specifically, with the surface of the sensor most parallel with the subject. It can be tricky to get a multidimensional creature, like a butterfly, in complete focus. If the wings are parallel to your camera and its sensor, it is relatively easy to capture a sharp image of the whole wing, but if the wings are at an angle, only a few centimeters of the wing will be in focus. This is where focus stacking can help. A favourite process of mine, it involves taking a progression or sequence of shots from the nearest to the farthest point of the subject. This allows us to get an image where the subject is totally focused and sharp. You can then blend them together in post-production to achieve an image with the whole subject in perfect focus – it’s a great technique! To create a stack, I would recommend using everything in manual mode, e.g. focus, timing, ISO, aperture and white balance.