Macro Exercises #3 Focus stacking

Lord Vetinari

The last one is more like double imaging etc.
Spiders in webs are very difficult as the subject is often geting blown around slightly.
Did you try manually aligning the images before stacking them ?
Any evidence of subject movement in the stack sequence ?

Sometimes reversing the stack helps with this (Stack\Reverse order)- sometimes several times.

These shots do look like there has been some movement somewhere either by the subject or perhaps in the act of focusing of the lens. I do not use tripods and prefer the fixed focus move camera method for taking the shot sequence. Often I'm simply resting the front of the lens on a surface when doing this. I do however sometimes get stack sequences that will not stack in the prog normally from misalignment and if I really want the stacked pic I will stack the pictures by hand in PS

Like Phil above I do not use czm now I've had too many problems with background blotching- the older CZ5 is better from this POV. I haven't really tried CZP - but on my limited trials it worked well but seemed more painful to use.
Brian V.

Unbrok3n

Is manually aligning the process you described in the beginning of this thread? If so, yes, these were manually alligned.
Could you quickly explain what the "fixed focus move camera method" is?
I cant get a working download of cz5 to work...do you think czp is ok??
I just see all these beautiful stacks on here, and I have no idea what im doing wrong!! haha.
Sorry for all the questions...

ps. when you do the reversing stack do you do that in place of the regular or after it? Thanks!

Unbrok3n

AFter a lot more trys tonight, Ive realized that ALL the results are bad, and pretty much all of them are like double imaging...and I dont understand why. I use manual alignment...
Is there a way to get the points in the exact spot on each image? Because I pretty much just eyeball it...
I dont know. Im just trying to understand whats goin on...sorry for being so annoying here.

GOLDENORFE

i think the frog pic has too large an area for the software to handle!
try stacking 2 or 3 frames of the left hand frog, then do same for r.h.frog then merge in ps with layer mask.

you may also be focusing too far between each frame, the subject size changes as you focus,if there is a big difference in size that may be too much for software to align.

phil
http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldenorfe/

Unbrok3n

So youre saying to do half the pic at a time and that to try and make the points closer together? Thanks for the help!

Lord Vetinari

Regards the manual alignment - I try to do this pretty accurately- normally by picking some bright small spots in the middle stack image and then aligning them on the other shots. Bright spots are normally easy to locate the centre of even when they are OOF. When making the choice of alignment spots on a shot in the middle- make sure you can find the "spots" in the first and last shot before you start the aligning process. When you've done this you shouldn't see any realignment by the prog larger than about 5 pixels and normally 0 or 1 pixel.

CZ5 requires a dll in the same working folder as the .exe file namely fftw3.dll - you should find it on the download page.
Brian v.

leaforte

I am NOT a macro shooter, but really wanted to try this. I used a 50mm with an extension tube and shot a rattle I own.

1st shot SOOC


stack of three SOOC


And curve and level adjustments to bring to realism.


It really is hard to get rid of the halos, and this is a great exercise for a non macro shooter like me to spend some time with focus issues.

I shot in raw and did a straight convert to JPEG so of course the WB is whack in the stacked shots. I should have taken the time to adjust in raw, but I didn't. I wanted to learn the software. Really quite simple...I just wish I had a good macro lens.

leaforte

I used a mirror to help with WB here. I really like the software. I am going to try to do a rattle snake vertebrae next, and maybe a black background.

A 24-70 with extension.

Lord Vetinari

Stacks look good leaforte

Brian V.

jaswebpics

Thanks for the tutorial! Here's my first attempt with some small images. 7 raw shots, contrast & colour cranked up for style. Single shot on the left, stack on the right...

Lord Vetinari

Looks like it worked well Jason
Brian V.

bret

Here's one I took of a Pentium chip using Helicon Focus.
(I gave up on the last row)

limited60

Does anybody mind adding what lenses they used in some of their pictures?

I'm a Nikon D90 owner, but pretty new to the craft and am looking to buy some glass on top of the kit 18-55 and 55-200VR lenses from my D40.

sebthedog1

ooh I'm excited - first focus stack
Hello all - I'd read this tutorial and wanted to have a go - went for a walk this afternoon and was lucky to find this exuvium to play with. I know this is far from perfect but I am chuffed!!

GOLDENORFE

Well done for a first stack.
makes a huge difference in dof compared to a single frame

how many frames? 2 or 3 ?

you can see an oof band just behind the wing cases and posibbly behind the head. you will learn with practise to shoot each frame without missing any pieces.

phil

sebthedog1

GOLDENORFE wrote: »

Well done for a first stack.
makes a huge difference in dof compared to a single frame

how many frames? 2 or 3 ?

you can see an oof band just behind the wing cases and posibbly behind the head. you will learn with practise to shoot each frame without missing any pieces.

phil

Thanks Phil - I am chuffed it nearly works

It was 3 frames - taken at Rixton this afternoon. Got some nasty bites -wading into the rushes to get a pic of a dragonfly and my right hand is so swollen I could hardly hold the camera at all - never mind we all make sacrifices for our art

Lord Vetinari

sebthedog1 wrote: »

Hello all - I'd read this tutorial and wanted to have a go - went for a walk this afternoon and was lucky to find this exuvium to play with. I know this is far from perfect but I am chuffed!!

Agree- worked pretty well -esp for first try at this.
You have some stacling borders on left and right sides that need cropping off (stripey effect)
Brian v.

sebthedog1

Thanks Brian for the comment and the tutorial - looking forward to learning lots here.

DeVil

This is my attempt at focus stacking (Thanks to LordV )


Single shot








Fokus stacking (Zerene stacker - 11 shot's f/11)

Overfocused

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Hi nano you can either try to use the clone tool as you suggest or a method I frequently use, is to use the healing brush tool to copy the affected part back from one of the original pics onto the stacked pic. Obviously you have to find the correct original with that part of the subject in focus.

Brian V.

Is there a way to mask a specific part of 1 image to exclude it? I have a moth here and its antennae were moving quite a bit while its body was still. I want to mask some of the frames that are oddballs for the position of the antennae.

By the way Combine ZM is now superseded by Combine ZP:

http://www.hadleyweb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/CZP/files.htm

Lord Vetinari

Overfocused wrote: »

Is there a way to mask a specific part of 1 image to exclude it? I have a moth here and its antennae were moving quite a bit while its body was still. I want to mask some of the frames that are oddballs for the position of the antennae.

By the way Combine ZM is now superseded by Combine ZP:

http://www.hadleyweb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/CZP/files.htm

AFAIK no you can't mask part of the image before stacking.
In that situation I normally stack and then use the cleanup tool in zerene stacker which allows you to copy from a specific frame back onto the stack, or just use the healing brush in photoshop to do the same thing.

Yes I never really got into combinezp before finding zerene stacker which I think is worth the money. I actually stopped using combine zm and went back to the older combine z5 which seemed to handle backgrounds better.
Brian v.

Overfocused

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

AFAIK no you can't mask part of the image before stacking.
In that situation I normally stack and then use the cleanup tool in zerene stacker which allows you to copy from a specific frame back onto the stack, or just use the healing brush in photoshop to do the same thing.

Yes I never really got into combinezp before finding zerene stacker which I think is worth the money. I actually stopped using combine zm and went back to the older combine z5 which seemed to handle backgrounds better.
Brian v.

This case is pretty nasty; its gonna need more than a healing brush. Its not handling the detail of the antennae well in any stack method. Here's a %100 crop. The rest of this picture is perfect which is what is confusing me since the rest of the picture is every bit as detailed as the antennae are.

GOLDENORFE

how about opening the stacked version in ps, then open original frame with good anntena detail, place stacked version over the top on a layer. reduce opacity of top layer to 50% to manually align and then erase/mask off to show through the good detail .

basflt

or, better , mask and copy copy only the antenna on top

Overfocused

Got it
It's a stack of 29 images so it was a bit more difficult than that. The brick information specific to where it is blurred is not in any of the photos since the antennae are covering the bricks at that spot. I just ended up going old school and manually masking the antenna/legs/bricks in steps since it wasn't just 1 image that could be masked in. It took a few hours since this was my first calculated/tripod stack ever, but its worth it in the end since it will be able to make 24x36 prints.

Single:


Stacked:

Lord Vetinari

Looks like it worked pretty well in the end.
It's much easier for fine detail stacking if the background is OOF behind the fine detail - not always possible but worth thinking about.
Brian v.

Overfocused

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Looks like it worked pretty well in the end.
It's much easier for fine detail stacking if the background is OOF behind the fine detail - not always possible but worth thinking about.
Brian v.

It is but I wanted %100 DOF for this one Right now all I have is a home made 2 way rail-slide thing with a detachable tripod plate on it. Its got no adjustment knobs or lock downs so its just free-sliding. I ordered a 4 way with a MM scale on the side which will make it much faster in the future and I won't need to see it in the screen anymore to know if I moved it just right.

Thanks for the feedback all!

Overfocused

Wow image stacking will be the death of me. A 24 x 36 JPEG @ 10 quality is 62 MB and the LZW TIFF is 241mb. I have to make it quality 6 to even upload it to smugmug lol

GOLDENORFE

Overfocused wrote: »

Wow image stacking will be the death of me. A 24 x 36 JPEG @ 10 quality is 62 MB and the LZW TIFF is 241mb. I have to make it quality 6 to even upload it to smugmug lol

WHY ARE YOUR FILE SIZES SO BIG? what camera are u using?

my stacked files from zerene average 7-9 mb

JGS2N

Thank you for the tutorial. Here is an attempt from today.