Macro Exercises #3 Focus stacking

Lord Vetinari

JGS2N wrote: »

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

That came out rather nicely !
Brian V.

Moonshae

First stacking attempt
Hi all,

I found this site a few days ago, and it has re-sparked my interest in macro. I knew about focus stacking, but didn't know there was software that could handle it for me; my Photoshop skills are fairly limited, and I wouldn't likely be able to pull it off.

So here is my first attempt, I plucked a flower outside of work (pickings are slim here in New Jersey) and shot it on my desk. Any comments/critiques are welcome; I found a few OOF areas when I zoomed in at 100%, so I know I need to take more slices with smaller increments.

The flower was too big to fit into my shot at 1:1, so hopefully the edges being cropped aren't a major issue.

Lord Vetinari

Moonshae wrote: »

Hi all,

I found this site a few days ago, and it has re-sparked my interest in macro. I knew about focus stacking, but didn't know there was software that could handle it for me; my Photoshop skills are fairly limited, and I wouldn't likely be able to pull it off.

So here is my first attempt, I plucked a flower outside of work (pickings are slim here in New Jersey) and shot it on my desk. Any comments/critiques are welcome; I found a few OOF areas when I zoomed in at 100%, so I know I need to take more slices with smaller increments.

The flower was too big to fit into my shot at 1:1, so hopefully the edges being cropped aren't a major issue.

Came out pretty well ! can't see any OOF stripes at this resolution
Brian v.

dixonduke

I received my 105mm VR today. I think I have a new best friend. My first ever Macro lens, and while I knew the DOF was thin, I had NO idea it was as thin as it is. Here is my attempt at Focus Stacking. 9 Shots, and I used Photoshop CS5 to do the merge.

I took 9 incremental shots, just moving the focusing mark while in live view. Started at the rear hub/spokes, and worked to the front of the bike.



Finished product with a slight levels adjustment layer to complete it off.

Dynamictank

Macro
I need a lens for a nikon d90 for pics of corals n reef tank

Lord Vetinari

dixonduke wrote: »

I received my 105mm VR today. I think I have a new best friend. My first ever Macro lens, and while I knew the DOF was thin, I had NO idea it was as thin as it is. Here is my attempt at Focus Stacking. 9 Shots, and I used Photoshop CS5 to do the merge.

I took 9 incremental shots, just moving the focusing mark while in live view. Started at the rear hub/spokes, and worked to the front of the bike.

Stack came out very well - lovely capture

Brian V.

Lord Vetinari

Dynamictank wrote: »

I need a lens for a nikon d90 for pics of corals n reef tank

Not sure if you need a macro lens for this or not, But a macro lens around 100mm focal length would work well. eg Nikon 105, Sigma 105, Tamron 90.

Brian v.

Proudfoto

Before...



After, with Zerene Stacker...



This took 8 slices in Zerene Stacker. CombineZM left a much more noticeable stepped halo around the Cheetah. I had the camera on a tripod, so alignment should not have been an issue. Though I did go through the steps to manually align in CombineZM, but I got the same result. Perhaps the size of the bokeh and the contrast are to blame?

After, with CombineZM...

Rob Pauza

Nice job Michael. Do you prefer Zerene or Photoshop for the stacking? I have both a PC and Mac, but I do all my photo stuff on the Mac, so I guess I don't have the Zenene option.... without some pain going cross-platform that is.

Lord Vetinari

Rob Pauza wrote: »

Nice job Michael. Do you prefer Zerene or Photoshop for the stacking? I have both a PC and Mac, but I do all my photo stuff on the Mac, so I guess I don't have the Zenene option.... without some pain going cross-platform that is.

Zerene stacker does have a MAC os version.
Brian V.

Proudfoto

Rob Pauza wrote: »

Nice job Michael. Do you prefer Zerene or Photoshop for the stacking? I have both a PC and Mac, but I do all my photo stuff on the Mac, so I guess I don't have the Zenene option.... without some pain going cross-platform that is.

I haven't tried in Photoshop, as I try to become proficient in software that I can actually afford .

jsqueri

Great tutorial, Brian, thank you. I've had moderate success with this, but I still have some issues.

This is a winner at f/5.6 with 3 exposures.


#1

The second also works (less than 1:1) at f/2.8 with 3 exposures.


#2


The last one is at f/2.8 with 5 exposures. Can anyone explain the problem?


#3

Any input would be appreciated.

Lord Vetinari

JOhn - as you say the first 2 stacks look good, the last one is a bit of a mess.
Not really certain what causes this but looks like one of the images has been mis-scaled or aligned. Have you tried reversing the stack order and trying it ?
Brian v.

Overfocused

GOLDENORFE wrote: »

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

my stacked files from zerene average 7-9 mb

Sorry I never saw your question till now...

I use a 5D Mark II and I generally stop down to F/10 so there is a lot more detail to record than using an open F/#

Scottington

Just replaced my D90 w/ my D7000... First thing I wanted to mess with were some macros and focus stacking. Testing out HeliconFocus for now, but I hope to a cheaper alternative for mac before the trial is up. I was testing it on one of my watches. Pictures are of the movement inside a recent acquisition of mine.

First shot


Took 9 in total

Lord Vetinari

Scott- that stack came out very well !
Brian v.

DeVerm

Happy to report that tests with PS CS5.1 went really well. I used 15 captures from 5D2, each about 5mm DOF for this 75mm silver gecko From tip of snout to end result:


My i7 CPU was rather busy with the job and the resulting TIFF was 3.42 GByte big !

cbbr

Looks great Nick - Any chance that you can piont me to a tutorial on CS5 and stacking?

DeVerm

cbbr wrote: »

Looks great Nick - Any chance that you can piont me to a tutorial on CS5 and stacking?

Oh that's easy enough nowadays... anything you want to know, just google it and if you like to see it, include keyword "youtube" in your google search

b.d.bop

Brian, when using Zerene stacker, must I first manually save each of the RAW slices to a TIF? It doesn't seem to want to accept my RAW CR2 files. Thanks in advance.

Lord Vetinari

b.d.bop wrote: »

Brian, when using Zerene stacker, must I first manually save each of the RAW slices to a TIF? It doesn't seem to want to accept my RAW CR2 files. Thanks in advance.

Hi, Yes- afraid so , it does not accept RAW files. I only ever stack JPGs
Brian v.

b.d.bop

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Hi, Yes- afraid so , it does not accept RAW files. I only ever stack JPGs
Brian v.

Thanks, Brian. Do you use some sort of bulk action in Ps to convert all your RAW slices to JPEGs, or do each one manually?

Lord Vetinari

b.d.bop wrote: »

Thanks, Brian. Do you use some sort of bulk action in Ps to convert all your RAW slices to JPEGs, or do each one manually?

I Just use Canons DPP RAW converter and do exposure control, colour temperature correction at the same time - yes it handles bulk files but I do not use TIFF files, they just take up too much space for the number of photographs I take..
Brian v.

b.d.bop

Thanks, as always, Brian.

- Mark

LoneRangeFinder

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Henry - I do have helicon focus but only tried it after I been using combinezm and I'm still using combinezm. I had more stack errors with helicon- not sure if it's less forgiving of mis-alignments or not but I just found combinezm more reliable in giving reasonable stacks.
brian V.

I have Helicon Focus, so I'm quite interested in this discussion. I also looked at Zerene at the time I was getting into focus stacking. As I recall, the choice (back then) was more limited by the lack of a Mac version for Zerene. Is CombineZm the free version of Zerene? I know quite a few stackers using Zerene-- and they produce excellent results. I'm wondering now if some of my stack failures could have been rescued by CombineZM

LoneRangeFinder

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Zerene stacker does have a MAC os version.
Brian V.

OK. Just saw this. Do you recall when the Mac version came out?

Thanks

basflt

LoneRangeFinder wrote: »

OK. Just saw this. Do you recall when the Mac version came out?

Thanks

http://www.zerenesystems.com/cms/stacker/softwaredownloads/archive

tiagodegaspari

Hello.'m New here and do not speak English, so I use google translator.

I've been trying to improve my photos but I have stacked type problems. In the example below, I have a photo this visible tip of the flower and after emplilhamento the visible part is blurred.

Original file used (file 002):


Stacking result white 11 files:


There are 11 photos in emplihamento. If someone wants to can access the photos and check that I used. Folder for photographs with 3000 pixel long side used in stacking:
http://www.fotobrasil.com.br/grinphoto/stack/

Thanks for your help.

Lord Vetinari

tiagodegaspari wrote: »

Hello.'m New here and do not speak English, so I use google translator.

I've been trying to improve my photos but I have stacked type problems. In the example below, I have a photo this visible tip of the flower and after emplilhamento the visible part is blurred.

Original file used (file 002):


Stacking result white 11 files:


There are 11 photos in emplihamento. If someone wants to can access the photos and check that I used. Folder for photographs with 3000 pixel long side used in stacking:
http://www.fotobrasil.com.br/grinphoto/stack/

Thanks for your help.

Hi. Only just seen you post. You would be able to repair the stack shot in something like photoshop by cloning from the original shots onto the stacked shot.
I did try doing a stack of your shots using zerene stacker and the result was pretty good with no repairing.
Brian V.

tiagodegaspari

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Hi. Only just seen you post. You would be able to repair the stack shot in something like photoshop by cloning from the original shots onto the stacked shot.
I did try doing a stack of your shots using zerene stacker and the result was pretty good with no repairing.
Brian V.

Satisfaction that you receive your response Lord Vetinari. Truly you are a master in macro shots.

I will test other tools. Currently only have CombineZM.

Thank you!