Blue... (Macro Focus Stacking Part III)...

[Remorhaz]

Whilst walking the paths through the Royal Botanic Gardens I found this plant on the side of the path in deep shade with these really interesting clusters of flowers about to be born. Basically it looked like a long thick stem with this ball shaped blob of blue at the end. This is lit with the LED macro ring light.

Firstly here is one of the individual images taken as part of the sequence for the stack - all taken at 1/100 sec at f/4 and ISO 500 (as you can see not a lot in focus and very limited DoF)



and this second is the result of focus stacking 34 exposures of 1/100 sec at f/4 and ISO 500 - whilst not perfect (some stacking errors still exist) it's a much improved result don't you think...

[Steffen]

As I said in the DTC thread (I hadn't seen this thread then), this result is spectacular. A great testament to your skill and dedication.

Cheers
Steffen.

[Remorhaz]

As I said in the DTC thread (I hadn't seen this thread then), this result is spectacular. A great testament to your skill and dedication

Thanks mate - saved the best for last - this was the last focus stack for that day unfortunately so I'll have to go out again sometime soon in search of more interesting subjects - I'd love to try something really tiny (1:1) and see how it works on that...

[Mj]

Excellent work there Rodney... I sometimes feel, as I do with this image, that the result is a little flat, but that I guess that's the penalty imposed by stacking, there's always some compromise in photography.
I take it you didn't handhold the 34 exposures but were on a tripod... did you use some rails for adjustment, adjust focus point in camera or physically move the camera position?
This is a technique that is pretty easy to apply in post for many images and very useful for both nature and product style shots... a good tool to have in the bag so to speak.

p.s. thinking about it I suspect that this image looks less flat and pretty damn impressive in full size.

[sirhc55]

Brilliant - go to the top of the class

[Chaase]

No2 is a stand out, well done!

[zafra52]

Spectacular!!

[Remorhaz]

I take it you didn't handhold the 34 exposures but were on a tripod... did you use some rails for adjustment, adjust focus point in camera or physically move the camera position?
This is a technique that is pretty easy to apply in post for many images and very useful for both nature and product style shots... a good tool to have in the bag so to speak.

Thanks Mj - tripod used and manually rotated the focus ring slightly between shots going from front to back.

Brilliant - go to the top of the class

No2 is a stand out, well done!

Spectacular!!

Thanks guys

[Mj]

I've had a quick play with Helicon remote for Android... looks like a great way to reduce some of the time/tedium and improve accuracy for focus stacking... though I've only tried the trial version which is jpg only it's nice to be able to get a view on the subject tablet sized, instruct it on where front and back focal points are and number of shots you want and then let it do its thing.

[biggerry]

ahh man, loaded post, the first image is no where near as saturated and tweaked as the second (all focusing stuff aside). However the second version, the stacked one is pretty epic..I love the luminous blues and the way it does just pop from the page.

nicely done.

[Remorhaz]

I've had a quick play with Helicon remote for Android... looks like a great way to reduce some of the time/tedium and improve accuracy for focus stacking... though I've only tried the trial version which is jpg only it's nice to be able to get a view on the subject tablet sized, instruct it on where front and back focal points are and number of shots you want and then let it do its thing.

Sounds very interesting - how does it control the focus of the lens? or does it require some sort of motorised rail?

ahh man, loaded post, the first image is no where near as saturated and tweaked as the second (all focusing stuff aside). However the second version, the stacked one is pretty epic..I love the luminous blues and the way it does just pop from the page. nicely done.

Thanks Gerry and yes the first image is SOC unprocessed RAW so... it was more about showing the limited DoF than anything else

[Mj]

Sounds very interesting - how does it control the focus of the lens? or does it require some sort of motorised rail?

Nope no rails needed... adjusts the focus in camera through the usb interface... I'll see if I can do a test run sometime today.
The trial version only supports jpg (possibly only basic res) but hopefully I can get a something out as a demo.
In theory it would make running say a 50 shot stack in the field a viable option (I'm guessing even you might not have the patience for that).
For product work they have a version of the software that runs on a PC and that would probably be the best option in a studio environment but the android version might provide a bunch of other opportunities for some interesting fungi shots etc.

[biggerry]

Sounds very interesting - how does it control the focus of the lens? or does it require some sort of motorised rail?

Nope no rails needed... adjusts the focus in camera through the usb interface... I'll see if I can do a test run sometime today.
The trial version only supports jpg (possibly only basic res) but hopefully I can get a something out as a demo.
In theory it would make running say a 50 shot stack in the field a viable option (I'm guessing even you might not have the patience for that).
For product work they have a version of the software that runs on a PC and that would probably be the best option in a studio environment but the android version might provide a bunch of other opportunities for some interesting fungi shots etc.

works pretty good, pretty easy to setup and automatically calculates the number of shots for the given focal range. I tried the desktop version in Helicon Soft, just watch ya flash, when it trys to take 30 shots with the flash pumped up one can cook ones flash...as i nearly did

[Mj]

I've just done a quick test... no flash used (but you can instruct it to pause to allow the flash to cope)... it did 34 shots without much trouble (but only jpg as per the trial limitation).
Processing it in PS didn't give me an error free output... and I'm not going to spend hours trying to tidy it up.
Mind you I did give it some complex jewellery with lots of fiddly bits so it had quite a challenge.
I'll install the main Helicon program and see if it fairs better.

[Willy wombat]

Thats quite awesome!!!

[Remorhaz]

I'll install the main Helicon program and see if it fairs better.

Thanks - I may have to give this a try sometime (at home) - so far I've only been doing this out in the field - I still can't believe this somehow manages to control lens focus from the computer...

Thats quite awesome!!!

Thanks...

... and get ready for more (sorry) - I shot some more stacks yesterday