Re: Another stacking question!
ken_in_nh wrote:
gardenersassistant wrote:
ken_in_nh wrote:
maggiemole wrote:
Horses for courses. I do most of my shooting for stacks in post focus video, and Helicon will extract the individual images from an MP4 file. This saves me quite. Bit of work. But I agree with the comments about Zerene which is very good too.
But this is something that can be done only with your brand camera. No other camera manufacturer supports video stacking.
No they don't, more's the pity. It is a very useful technique.
You also take quite a resolution hit.
Not with one of the 20mp sensor Panasonics that let you use 18 mpix 6K video. That is what I use for flowers etc. Besides which, depending on what your output size is, 8mpix from 4K video may be sufficient. It was for my purposes for example before I moved to a 6K camera.
And since we are talking of advantages/disadvantages, an advantage of video stacking is that you get just one file to manage per take, which in my experience makes a significant difference to file management and, if you deal with a lot of subjects and takes of them, storage volumes. Another advantage of video stacking is that it is point and shoot, with no setup management to be handled. It is very quick and easy to execute, repeatedly, which can be very helpful in breezy conditions.
A big disadvantage of video is that it can't be used with flash, only with continuous illumination. (I'm not sure, but I think I recall that flash can't even be used with focus bracketing on Panasonics.) That makes video less suitable for insects etc as the magnification goes up. I see video stacking as being pretty much limited to natural light close-ups. (I have seen it used successfully for subjects as small as springtails, but rarely.)
Like Maggie said, horses for courses.
...and then you end up processing highly compressed images, more compressed than jpg. Do you get artifacts like banding when you adjust levels, or never do so?
Yes I do adjust levels (or the equivalent thereof - highlights, shadows, whites, blacks etc). No, I don't get artefacts when I do that.
I shoot raw, which gives me plenty of latitude to adjust anything in my source photos,
I use a very flat Cinelike D profile which gives me additional latitude for processing. Not as much as raw of course, but more than normal JPEG.
But in any case, I'm not claiming that using video is better than focus bracketing. I'm claiming that both video and focus bracketing have advantages and disadvantages and depending on one's needs, preferences etc either may be the best tool for the job. (In fact I use focus bracketing for some purposes.)
and I don't find working with multiple files to be the slightest inconvenience,
Our experience varies in that respect.