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Focus stacking and the Oly EM1 mike

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stefano888

stefano888

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Has anyone tried the "focus stacking" with the Oly em1 mkII?

You put the camera on a tripod and click.

You should automatically capture 9 pictures. One with everything in focus from a few centimeters to infinity and eight other with variable focal point.

This is true only with PRO lenses.

I got strange and unpredictable results.

I wonder if anyone in the forum tried it.
 
stefano888 said:
Has anyone tried the "focus stacking" with the Oly em1 mkII?

You put the camera on a tripod and click.

You should automatically capture 9 pictures. One with everything in focus from a few centimeters to infinity and eight other with variable focal point.

This is true only with PRO lenses.

I got strange and unpredictable results.

I wonder if anyone in the forum tried it.
Click to expand...
 
I had a go with my E-M1 Mk 1. The result was interesting. I was impressed that I could hand hold the shot, though as perhaps expected it didn't work with a flower that was blowing around in the wind. The process was quite quick and used the silent shutter. Watching through the viewfinder I saw the focus move across my subject as it went.

Put a non-PRO lens on and it switches to focus bracketing without warning. You can find yourself taking 999 shots if you've left the count high!

Unfortunately I no longer have the shot. My experiments using the JPG engine not my normal RAW workflow mean I didn't copy the images off the card! The one I kept was the one I took at f/8 in a single frame.
 
It is not as simple as that.

First, you select a focus interval from 1 to 10. This will determine the distance between each focus "jump." Olympus has not provided much information about these intervals, but experimentation by forum regulars have determined that a setting of "1" will move the focus point by approximately one depth-of-field distance for the aperture selected. Higher settings will move the focus point more, but at some point you will encounter focus banding, with out-of-focus areas in between the in-focus areas. I've found a setting of "3" works well for most subjects.

Next, the camera will take the first shot at the aimed focus spot, then jump forward and take two shots at closer distances and finally jump backward and take five more shots at farther distances. These are saved and then merged in-camera to create the final image.

In most cases, focus will not reach infinity, especially if you start with a close object and a moderate aperture. And, for best results you will want to use moderate apertures, where m43 lenses tend to be sharpest.
 
It would be nice if the focus interval was easier to understand. I guessed, but they really have been guesses. If only we could focus on the two extremes and say "fill in between these two please".
 
Skeeterbytes said:
You may want to look at Lester's work .

He's done a lot of the heavy lifting.

Cheers,

Rick

--
Equivalence and diffraction-free since 2009.
You can be too; ask about our 12-step program.
Click to expand...
And Richard Turton's work here, too. In a limited range of his table, I was able to determine through testing that for my needs his table was nearly bang on with what I found. What you need to start with is how much DOF you require for a particular image. Then, it is relatively easy to choose a focus step (or focus step possibilities) and finally experiment with aperture.

448316347c1243b08b1d9527ec18899c.jpg



The sporophyte and leaf maximum width is likely around 1.5-2mm
The sporophyte and leaf maximum width is likely around 1.5-2mm
 
Last edited:
stefano888 said:
Has anyone tried the "focus stacking" with the Oly em1 mkII?

You put the camera on a tripod and click.

You should automatically capture 9 pictures. One with everything in focus from a few centimeters to infinity and eight other with variable focal point.

This is true only with PRO lenses.

I got strange and unpredictable results.

I wonder if anyone in the forum tried it.
Click to expand...
It is same in Mk2 as in E-M1. 8 frames and one stacked. First frame is what is your focus point, 2 next ones are from closest to second closest and then rest are behind your chosen focus point.

The problem is that the edge detection ain't so great in-body stacking and can leave ghosting.

I prefer to use just the focus bracketing with manual focus. Because you can manually focus where you want and then just tap screen and camera brackets all from that focus point to end of series or infinity.

And the best thing is that you can always just use like a 20-30 bracketing frames and if you think you need more, tap again the screen and camera continues next 20-30 frames from the last one.

And then I use Affinity Photo to do the stacking. It does just amazing work compared to others.
 
M0RJC said:
It would be nice if the focus interval was easier to understand. I guessed, but they really have been guesses. If only we could focus on the two extremes and say "fill in between these two please".
Click to expand...
Yes. That is how it should have been done as a third option, call it as ie "Focus Fill".

Tap on screen to point A and then point B (doesn't matter in which distance) and then camera does the math for the given aperture and does the shoot.

This is why I like to use MF and just start from the closest distance with 20-30 frames per bracket and just keep touching the screen (usually have smartphone as remote trigger) until I see that the DOF has reached the furthest end I want.
 
Many thanks to all people who answered to my question. You have been a great help!
 
stefano888 said:
Has anyone tried the "focus stacking" with the Oly em1 mkII?

You put the camera on a tripod and click.

You should automatically capture 9 pictures. One with everything in focus from a few centimeters to infinity and eight other with variable focal point.

This is true only with PRO lenses.

I got strange and unpredictable results.

I wonder if anyone in the forum tried it.
Click to expand...
 
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