Hey Paul,
I’ve been trying to do a dragon fly my self to test.I had over 1200 photos to stack, about 15-20 to stack in each position. I started using helicon focus for stacking. I did notice the stacking software included noise from each frame in the stack. My guess was that it thought it was fine details and compiled it in the results. I’ll have to try the matte varnish as my results didn’t turn out so good because of the reflectiveness of the majority of the subject.
What I really want to focus on would be the compound eyes. I see this being a major challenge, but would be amazing to pull off. Have you any pointers besides the matte finishing? I don’t use stabilization and am using a tripod, and a light box.
Some samples of the focus stacked dragon fly. I deleted the pictures to be used for photogrammetry, but kept some I took outside. They make a good example of the same dragon fly. In the actual pictures I put him on the top of a triangular ruler.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/edSb6yPWZmDniPEc7