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Extreme focus stacking
- Thread starter rich33584
- Start date
WirenL
Senior Member
I am not trying to be rude and I know so little about the need for focus stacking. I realize that sometimes it is needed.... like star trail shots and some macro bug things.....
You may have been doing this as an exercise in learning..... and it looks cool, kudos there.
But if you can educate me....? Why wouldn't you just stop down for a deeper fov, widening out your focal plane? Is it due to lighting issues? I guess I have never understood a huge need for focus stacking for general purposes other than it's a cool trick with neat effects. But as I admit, I have not sought out knowledge of why it may be more necessary than I think and would love to know if there is a larger purpose than I have cared to think about until now?
Thanks
Lee
You may have been doing this as an exercise in learning..... and it looks cool, kudos there.
But if you can educate me....? Why wouldn't you just stop down for a deeper fov, widening out your focal plane? Is it due to lighting issues? I guess I have never understood a huge need for focus stacking for general purposes other than it's a cool trick with neat effects. But as I admit, I have not sought out knowledge of why it may be more necessary than I think and would love to know if there is a larger purpose than I have cared to think about until now?
Thanks
Lee
photoSmart42
Senior Member
Stopping down beyond a certain f-stop (depending on sensor size) means introducing diffraction errors, which means soft images. For a 12MP 4/3-sized sensor, the diffraction limit starts to become visible around f/8. Focus stacking allows you to keep within the pre-diffaction zone to maintain sharpness while still covering a large portion of your target image with simulated DOF.
Oh, Mainly it was all just to practice. I wanted to get used to the procedure and the best way to do it(for me anyways) is to jump in and do it. I had taken macro shots of teh processor before and all I could ever get into focus at once was just one of those little boxes.
The DOF on that lens is razor thin even when stopped down. I did mean to stop it down to f8, but didnt think to do it untill I was about 20 images in.
Its pointless, I know, but its how I learn.
The DOF on that lens is razor thin even when stopped down. I did mean to stop it down to f8, but didnt think to do it untill I was about 20 images in.
Its pointless, I know, but its how I learn.
WirenL
Senior Member
I knew there had to be a point to it, like I said, I have never gotten into that much of macro photography..... I appreciate your explanation very much....
How does this work when doing macro bugs.... if they move your screwed, right?
Again, thanks for the insight.
Lee
WirenL
Senior Member
Thanks Rich, I learn that way myself most times. I figured that was what you were showing.
How do you stack the iimages..... do you need to use PS for that trick, or is there a freebie program out there to enable this for those of us too poor for PS?
Lee
did you stop at 80? How did you do the stitching?
Here's a focus stacked macro panorama with 2500 individual images:
And the Photosynth: http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=3c6a1c2a-7426-41d7-bbea-3f46feefa9c5
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http://www.efrench.members.winisp.net/
Here's a focus stacked macro panorama with 2500 individual images:
And the Photosynth: http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=3c6a1c2a-7426-41d7-bbea-3f46feefa9c5
--
http://www.efrench.members.winisp.net/
Interesting technique, I'm also interested in knowing how you do it!
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http://www.ohb.no/foto
************
Torstein
Art_P
Forum Pro
that must have taken forever to shoot and process!
Did you stack the whole batch, or do a bunch at a time and then stack the results?
Did you have a stepper motor to move a focus rail between frames?
--
Art P
"I am a creature of contrast,
of light and shadow.
I live where the two play together,
I thrive on the conflict"
Did you stack the whole batch, or do a bunch at a time and then stack the results?
Did you have a stepper motor to move a focus rail between frames?
--
Art P
"I am a creature of contrast,
of light and shadow.
I live where the two play together,
I thrive on the conflict"
M
Moshe Ronen
Guest
...
Then, (with all layers still selected) do Edit-> Auto-Blend Layers. Select 'Stack Images' and 'Seamless Tone and Color'.
From the single image rich33584 posted, and my experience, not more than 10 images are required.
In one of the E cameras, I don't remember which, there was an option for 'Auto-focus-bracketing', which is ideal for this situation. E-3 and 5 don't have it, but the Auto-Align feature in Photoshop works well, so movement is not that critical. Changing focus distance changes image size, but apparently Auto-Align deals with it, because you do not see any problem with changes in image size.
Moshe
In Photoshop, you load all images as layers, select all layers, and do Edit-> Auto-Align Layers.
Then, (with all layers still selected) do Edit-> Auto-Blend Layers. Select 'Stack Images' and 'Seamless Tone and Color'.
From the single image rich33584 posted, and my experience, not more than 10 images are required.
In one of the E cameras, I don't remember which, there was an option for 'Auto-focus-bracketing', which is ideal for this situation. E-3 and 5 don't have it, but the Auto-Align feature in Photoshop works well, so movement is not that critical. Changing focus distance changes image size, but apparently Auto-Align deals with it, because you do not see any problem with changes in image size.
Moshe
kernow
Forum Pro
I run a Flickr group for image stacking.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/dof_stacking/
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Oll an gwella,
Jim
http://www.flickr.com/groups/dof_stacking/
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Oll an gwella,
Jim
How were you doing the steps, with a focus rail or changing focus with the lens?
There is a portable system called Stackshot that works really well for automating the capture portion. It's also pretty straight forward to roll your own if you have any programming experience.
I tried Photoshop for focus stacking, but it was pretty limited in the number of images it could stack quickly (You're pretty close to the limit). It didn't do a very good job of selecting the best focus from each frame. It doesn't mean you can't get good results with it, your image looks very good.
Basically all of the shots are done without stopping except for moving the images from the card to the computer and moving to the next frame in the pano. The Olympus SDK is extremely limited as it only allows capturing to the computer and on my e330, this means 20+ seconds per image. To work around the issue, I use an Arduino microprocessor programmed to drive a stepper motor and trigger the shutter using IR. Each image takes about 8 seconds that includes lots of settling time for vibrations from the stepper and mirror lockup.
This image took 7 hours to shoot and another 6 hours to do the focus stacking, pano stitching, and other PP. Most of the time is just monitoring the process, so it's mostly computer time, not human time. I use Zerene Stacker for focus stacking and Microsoft ICE for stitching.
Here's a few images of my desktop studio: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v649/etfrench/Macro%20Pano%20Head/
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http://www.efrench.members.winisp.net/
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