Super Macro Centipede Photo

Encountering a stationary Centipede is a rare thing. I found it beneath a stump that I flipped, and for this shot I was laying on my belly in my backyard. I took 24 shots to focus stack. Though definitely still alive, Centipedes generally don’t stay still so I’m assuming this one might have been on its last leg (Ha!). I was able to accomplish 24 shots because I could rest a corner of my camera on the ground and slowly push it forward. I first ran the 24 images through Zerene stacker, but Photoshop CC ended up doing the better job. Still, my stacked shots weren’t perfectly aligned so I had a lot of artifacts to manually clean up including a poorly blended foreground. Besides stacking, no post processing whatsoever was necessary because the flash did a fine job of creating contrast and saturating the Centipede’s orange body. If I’m honest, I’m fond of the usual suspects that make people cringe (spiders, snakes, bats etc…), but Centipedes are the one critter that makes my spine shiver.