Alternate Stacking Concepts for Extreme Macro Use

Securing and stabilizing the camera to it's mount on the rail once is a lot easier than stabilizing subjects on a moving platform.

ClosePhoto wrote:

Securing and stabilizing the camera to it's mount on the rail once is a lot easier than stabilizing subjects on a moving platform.

I mostly use the camera lens securely mounted to a focus rail like shown below. This works well but does limit movement & resolution precision to what the rail is capable of producing, why we use the THK KR type rails for high magnification use, which are high precision

At high magnifications it's likely the subject will be very small, in my case semiconductor chips, so using an adapted piezo or speaker stage becomes feasible.

The main advantage of using these devices is that you can get very small (possibly sub micron) movements without any induced movement vibration and free from static friction because both rely of flexing of a membrane rather than the mechanical interfaces such as gears, threads and nuts in traditional focus rails.

The Physik Instrumente piezo stages use a "membrane" called a "flexure", laser cut from a solid stainless steel block roughly 150 by 40 by 20mm. The only interface is the ceramic piezo elements wedged into the stainless steel fixture, movement is by way of "flexing" the structure as the ceramic element changes length due to applied electric field. The "flexing" is cleverly controlled and routed by the laser cuts in the solid stainless steel block to move the stage ~ +-100 microns. This movement has been confirmed by strain gauges located on the block and soon by optical means. The speaker movements have also been confirmed by others with a different (voltage mode rather than current mode) control scheme, see PM site mentioned.

Best,

Horizontal WeMacro Stand Setup with Focus Rail

Vertical Setup with Focus Rail

Camera & Lens attached to THK KR20 Focus Rail, note subject semiconductor chip

Close up of Stackshot Focus Rail with Camera & Lens, this is high precision Thor Labs Optical base setup

Here's few images showing the Piezo Stage mounted to a quality ARCA clamp and supporting precision micrometer X&Y positioning stage.

Physik Piezo Stage with XYR Micrometers mounted to WeMacro Vertical Stand

Physik Piezo Stage, note adapter to allow 1/4-20 threaded inserts & ARCA circular clamp for mounting to base stage. This is a solid block of SS, the covers are attached (2 screws)  in only one axis to allow movement with the solid block. The stages moves up and down ~ +-100um in the direction of the arrow.

Physik Piezo Stage, note adapter to allow 1/4-20 threaded inserts & ARCA Clamp on bottom

Physik Piezo Stage with XY and Rotation Micrometers. Note small Ball Head for subject mounting.

Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
~Mike

Just completed a couple initial videos showing the custom controller running a routine to drive the PI piezo stage. The stage is driven in 1/4 full range steps from start to full and back, then ramped up and down in and sequentially slower ramps.

The PI piezo stage is mounted to a Wemaco vertical stage base with an ARCA Clamp, on top of the PI stage is a small 40mm XY&R precision positioner with a small ball head. The subject is a bend pin tip, viewed at 10X.

If you watch the 2nd video carefully you can see the pin tip move up & down and follow the patterns as mentioned and shown on the oscilloscope trace in the 1st video. When viewing the pin tip thru the 10X on the small HDMI screen, note the smoothness in the movements.

I may try and get the Voice Coil Motor controller setup and operating since I have a couple speakers now.

Best,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_ivuW7cDbc0UZu-sLZhAbLKP1_vjO_S_/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pnRIFX0qcuJV1ZL59GA0FpupQuggQJXT/view?usp=sharing

I've just been able to free up enough time to do a preliminary evaluation of the Current Mode Voice Coil Controller.

Long story short, it works superbly!!!

The setup is a small 2.5" (~65mm) diameter 4 ohm speaker removed for an old Samsung Surround Sound system. The speaker is mounted on top of a small 40mm square XYR micrometer positioner which is attached by an ARCA clamp to a Wemacro Vertical Stand. A Mitutoyo 10X lens is setup with a 200mm LFA tube lens on a Nikon D850 to display the subject bent pin head on a small HDMI monitor. Foam tape was used to attach to the speaker cone center, and the pin mounted to the foam tape.

The Current Mode Controller is running a routine to move the VCM from start position to 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and Full Scale (409.6ma) and return, then reverse the direction to negative Full Scale (-409.6ma) and repeat. After which the VCM is ramped up and down above and below start at varying speeds.

Everything is being controlled from a Raspberry Pi 3B which is also hosting a 3 axis Trinamic Stepper Motor Controller for precision Stack & Stitch use. A single 12V power supply is required to operate the VCM and the 3 Axis Trinamic Controller.

Here's a quick video to show the VCM operation under Current Mode control with the Current Mode Custom Controller.

The range is ~ +-450um. This isn't a good setup to evaluate linearity since things are attached with tape and such (subject to cone and speaker to XYR stage). That test will need to come later when I can get things mounted properly, but still limited to the use of the KR20 as a means to establish position, others may want to get involved with better setups to evaluate linearity. Suspect this will follow a classic S curve, since the weakest force is required at near zero position with subject weight shifting things down some and progressively more force away from zero required. Without feedback this should instill a S type actual position vs. command curve.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TOeFBZHEw-NcaHw26PbSoh94_LUlG0iR/view?usp=sharing

See more details at PM:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40123

Best,

As a network engineer these kinds of hardware threads speak to my inner geek, but as a photographer they kinda leave me flat. At the end what really matters is what can be produced with all of that kit, and what are the images going to be used for. If the final photo isn't the goal then it's just photography for the sake of the gear or the techniques.

It's being developed for work that generally won't be posted here, advanced semiconductor chip imaging at the sub-micron level. Getting to this level of precision and resolution is quite difficult & expensive, equipment easily exceeding ones yearly salary. OEM closed loop systems can achieve 1 nanometer resolution with 5 nanometer repeatability. See PI-USA for examples of precision piezoelectric stages to move the lens & subject.

This is for those few folks "in the know" that may want to delve into this micron and sub-micron level at a more reasonable cost, thus the title "Extreme Macro", certainly not for shooting bees in the garden! A few of the these systems and precision motor controllers have already been shipped to folks in UK, Germany, Sweden, Ecuador and scattered all around the US and Canada, more following.

The Piezoelectric stage setup is now being mounted to a Thor Labs based precision optical setup, while I contemplate how to mount the VCM (Speaker) more securely to a base for linearity evaluation and prepare another shipment. First session with Thor Labs setup with Piezo Stage likely will be a custom Indium Phosphide chip I've designed that is much less than a 1mm square. Lens used will be a custom arranged Mitutoyo 20X Infinite NA 0.42 (Equates to F24), then a Mitutoyo 50X Infinte NA 0.42 microscope objectives. Post processing will likely involve deconvolution to help with diffraction effects introduced by the limited 0.42 NA. After this a more involved session will take place with a large Stack and Stitch session with another larger custom chip.

Anyway, it's kinda fun designing these on a budget utilizing surplus stuff instead of just purchasing the necessary equipment as would be done before I retired. Advanced chip designers are highly valued and very expensive, so time needs to be utilized designing chips, not fixtures

BTW, deconvolution post processing is something you should look into, might help with the DoF and Diffraction induced image degradation trade-off due to small apertures. You need to know some specifics (Point Spread Function) about your lens and sensor though.

Best,

mawyatt2002 wrote:

This is for those few folks "in the know" that may want to delve into this micron and sub-micron level at a more reasonable cost, thus the title "Extreme Macro", certainly not for shooting bees in the garden!

Oh I don't know. I think being able to take shots like this hand held, without cropping in post, is pretty extreme...

Anyway, it's kinda fun designing these on a budget utilizing surplus stuff instead of just purchasing the necessary equipment as would be done before I retired. Advanced chip designers are highly valued and very expensive, so time needs to be utilized designing chips, not fixtures

That's what I mean -getting into it for the gear. I get it, I really do. Being a network engineer and designing some of my own circuits, I realize how much fun it is to hack something together. But I'm just more concerned with what I can produce with the kit and the techniques. Publishers aren't interested in how I take my photos unless those images are good enough to get their attention.

BTW, deconvolution post processing is something you should look into, might help with the DoF and Diffraction induced image degradation trade-off due to small apertures. You need to know some specifics (Point Spread Function) about your lens and sensor though.

Thanks, I'll look into it! Topaz Labs recently released some new plugins and among them was Sharpen AI. It does a pretty good job of cleaning up my images. I suck at post processing, and it's something that I've started to invest some time in. Although I think I could make this next shot even better this is my latest attempt at a 5x shot @ F11. Single frame hand held and not cropped in post.

I get what you're diving into, but it would be great if you also work on your lighting and composition at the same time as all that fancy photo stacking gear. Might be able to produce some really fascinating images that are well lit, and well composed, that get published...

Check out Fotoopa -he's a retired engineer (possibly Dutch) who designs circuits for various photography projects. Even built his own shutter because the timing for the camera controlled lens shutter is too variable.

ClosePhoto wrote:

Securing and stabilizing the camera to it's mount on the rail once is a lot easier than stabilizing subjects on a moving platform.

no its not.

Don

John K wrote:

mawyatt2002 wrote:

This is for those few folks "in the know" that may want to delve into this micron and sub-micron level at a more reasonable cost, thus the title "Extreme Macro", certainly not for shooting bees in the garden!

Oh I don't know. I think being able to take shots like this hand held, without cropping in post, is pretty extreme...

As mentioned "Stacking" & "Extreme" here implying high magnifications with DoF of 3 microns (or less) and even involving micron and sub-micron levels of stacking, not single shot images (handheld or not) at very high effective apertures where serious diffraction limits IQ.

As you already know stacking is a very valuable method of getting around the DoF and aperture trade off, this is why many new cameras have a focus stacking routines built in. We're talking about images where the entire subject is "in focus", not just the front.

Anyway, it's kinda fun designing these on a budget utilizing surplus stuff instead of just purchasing the necessary equipment as would be done before I retired. Advanced chip designers are highly valued and very expensive, so time needs to be utilized designing chips, not fixtures

That's what I mean -getting into it for the gear. I get it, I really do. Being a network engineer and designing some of my own circuits, I realize how much fun it is to hack something together. But I'm just more concerned with what I can produce with the kit and the techniques. Publishers aren't interested in how I take my photos unless those images are good enough to get their attention.

This stuff is quite far from "hack something together", utilizing much more advanced circuits than what's normally even available commercially. In fact a colleague has suggested I patent one of these circuit/concepts, I didn't get 30 US Patents granted for generally doing stuff that's considered "prior art" and "hacking something together!!

I don't publish my images, most are not for general public viewing for obvious reasons. A few can be viewed at some major US technology companies and USG agencies. We've used these images in our presentations and proposals, a colleague has a 55 inch OLED display (soon an 80) that he's using to show these...they certainly look good on that display!!

BTW, deconvolution post processing is something you should look into, might help with the DoF and Diffraction induced image degradation trade-off due to small apertures. You need to know some specifics (Point Spread Function) about your lens and sensor though.

Thanks, I'll look into it! Topaz Labs recently released some new plugins and among them was Sharpen AI. It does a pretty good job of cleaning up my images. I suck at post processing, and it's something that I've started to invest some time in. Although I think I could make this next shot even better this is my latest attempt at a 5x shot @ F11. Single frame hand held and not cropped in post.

Impressive shot, but 5X @ F11 is an effective aperture of F66!! That's probably much too far into diffraction to be corrected in post with the available tools, my feeling is ~F25 is more realistic to expect post for help. Try looking at this image on a 55 inch screen or bigger (like 80 inch), you will see the effects of diffraction. BTW the semiconductor folks have been doing similar techniques for over 30 years (beating diffraction), and the stuff they are doing now is just beyond comprehension, even for folks in the know. It's like, "you can't do that!!", but they do

I get what you're diving into, but it would be great if you also work on your lighting and composition at the same time as all that fancy photo stacking gear. Might be able to produce some really fascinating images that are well lit, and well composed, that get published...

I got the lighting figured out long ago when attempting to image chips with thousands of tiny (40um) spherical mirrors called solder balls, they reflect anything and everything and required absolute uniform lighting which was achieved with quadruple diffusion levels. Also have the "composition" in hand as I normally don't image chips "flat" but at an angle to give a 3D perspective which requires significant depth, these are often used in presentations and proposals and must "look nice" as well as being technically correct and precise.

Getting to sub-micron levels (not talking about it, or "hacking" something together thinking you are at these levels, like using ridiculous levels of rail motor micro-stepping and gearing and thinking you can get a few nanometers actual resolution with many moving mechanical interfaces) when focus stacking is not trivial. Things like, temperature gradients, AC, sounds, walking nearby, airplanes, traffic, doors, fans, pumps, camera mirror/shutter and so on, all play to ruin your stacks at higher magnifications. But when you get it right the effort proves worthwhile to those that understand an appreciate what they are viewing. Kind of like your bee images, to the lay person that's just another bug image, but to someone more involved, that's a great bee image!

Should mention, one of the very reasons for undertaking the effort for these alternate stacking techniques (Piezo and VCM) is for massive Stack and Stitch efforts. Often these sessions involve taking 6,000 or more images at high magnifications and resolution (Mitutoyo objective lenses). Time between shots becomes a major issue, if say you allow 15 seconds between shots that's 25 hours for a 6000 image session! Much effort has been placed upon reducing this time factor with a goal (already achieved) of less that 2 seconds per shot, which equates to a more reasonable 3.3 hours for the 6000 image session. To do this you must eliminate all sources of vibration including camera and focus rail & motor induced. The camera area has been solved with fully electronic curtain shutters (both front and rear), the rail movement & motor is a work in progress and with the latest Trinamic based controllers adapted for macro use have achieved sub 2 second intervals. Now the bar has been raised to ~ one second intervals and the Piezo and VCM are being investigating for use.

Here's a brief video showing a custom stepper motor controller I've developed awhile back to show the effects of rail induced movement vibration reduction. This involves precisely controlling the velocity, acceleration and position profiles and the stepper motor current waveform and timing. The video shows an effective magnification of 800X on a Wemacro Vertical Stand sitting on a kitchen table (not the most stable environment, but will certainly show the effects of any vibration), so any movement/vibration effects are easily detected.

For some reason this won't copy from Google, so try from the PM link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19wE-B-dMesEXNtEZ552h_VnpWOjA0n0B/view?usp=sharing

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39396&start=30

Anyway, this has been a long undertaking to get to this level of precision and resolution, and still achieve reasonable times between shots.

Best,

Actually people are viewing my work on HDTVs and are impressed with the level of detail and the sharpness. I am losing some texture data to diffraction, but it's not enough for me to care about since it's more important for a photo to look good edge to edge. No one saves 100% crops to their PC or smartphone screens as wallpaper, and no one is printing them...

I've experimented with focus stacking, but for the subjects that I shoot and the magnifications it's just not worth it. Stacking comes with the same limitations as using a tripod -the subject has to be completely immobile, and I photograph a lot of semi active to hyperactive critters.

John K wrote:

Actually people are viewing my work on HDTVs and are impressed with the level of detail and the sharpness. I am losing some texture data to diffraction, but it's not enough for me to care about since it's more important for a photo to look good edge to edge. No one saves 100% crops to their PC or smartphone screens as wallpaper, and no one is printing them...

I've experimented with focus stacking, but for the subjects that I shoot and the magnifications it's just not worth it. Stacking comes with the same limitations as using a tripod -the subject has to be completely immobile, and I photograph a lot of semi active to hyperactive critters.

You really cant get over the fact that stacked images are taking macro to another level. get over it and move on.

Don

Luisifer wrote:

Just a note:

HDTV (or FullHDTV and not only the worst case HDTV) is like postcard. BFU likes postcards. But it is extremly low level of expectations.

(it would be fine that forum targeted to macro will joint people to be more experienced and had more expectations and which like challenges ... than forum where is given priority to BFUs with bad screens, worse eyes and moreover applauding to anything)

Agree! A very large (55~80 inch) 4K OLED screen isn't too bad tho, but the new 8K screens should be really nice. Soon we may see

A colleague has printed a special developed chip on a very large metal platform (metal print), it looks stunning in detail and contrast, but the OLED screen looks even better. I believe this is because the OLED screen is emitting rather than reflecting and has very large contrast ratios. It's like having a very large ultra-quality high resolution printed picture you can program with different images!!

The very large 8K screens should take this to another level. BTW the 5K Apple 27" screen is OK, but rather small, the latest 6K should be better but I haven't seen one yet.

Best,

John K wrote:

Actually people are viewing my work on HDTVs and are impressed with the level of detail and the sharpness. I am losing some texture data to diffraction, but it's not enough for me to care about since it's more important for a photo to look good edge to edge. No one saves 100% crops to their PC or smartphone screens as wallpaper, and no one is printing them...

I've experimented with focus stacking, but for the subjects that I shoot and the magnifications it's just not worth it. Stacking comes with the same limitations as using a tripod -the subject has to be completely immobile, and I photograph a lot of semi active to hyperactive critters.

Your bee's images are similar to portrait work, where resolution and edge sharpness isn't that important and in fact purposely blurred. Nikon developed a special 58mm lens just for portraits, it wasn't very sharp and had poor edge performance but beautiful bokeh. One certainly wouldn't select this lens for architectural work, or anything other than portrait work.

A 5X F11 with effective aperture at sensor of F66 {Flens(M+1)} is a NA of 0.03788. This is so far into diffraction territory that post processing is severely limited, maybe the new deconvolution tools will help.

It's funny that you are so into not cropping the image, your preferred composition and such, even degrading others that do crop or without your preferred composition, yet you degrade the original image capture from the start by using such a high effective aperture!!

The Mitutoyo Objective 5X has a NA of 0.14 (Effective Aperture of 17.86), while the Canon 5X at F11 has a NA of 0.03788 (Effective Aperture of 66). Much effort has been expended in designing lens for 2~3X and beyond to produce high IQ at higher magnifications. These lenses are fixed in magnification, aperture and without focus capability, ever wonder why??

If you want higher resolution you must open up the aperture (lower F at sensor) to reduce the effects of diffraction and suffer the loss of DoF. This is where stacking plays an important role by allowing knowledgable and unbiased folks to chose where and how to get around this limitation of diffraction and DoF. At 5X with F11 (F66 at sensor) your DoF is ~1/3mm. How would you get an entire small 1.5mm deep subject into focus without stacking, maybe go to F22 (F132 at sensor) to get 1.5mm DoF? Here, a simple stack of ~55 images with a Mitutoyo 5X solves the problem with an effective aperture at sensor of ~18!

BTW focus stacking isn't limited to the studio, many folks are now stacking in the field utilizing many different methods including the "in camera" stacking routines in the latest cameras. Check out Andreas Kay's work in documenting the macro world of Ecuador utilizing in-field focus stacking and video, and the clever devices created to allow this (shown over on PM).

Focus stacking is here to stay and allowing folks to produce amazing images where Diffraction and DoF are barriers that can be bypassed.

You can continue to deny focus stacking or move forward and embrace focus stacking as a very useful and extremely powerful tool for producing stunning images as many folks here and elsewhere have done.

Best,

Donald B wrote:

John K wrote:

Actually people are viewing my work on HDTVs and are impressed with the level of detail and the sharpness. I am losing some texture data to diffraction, but it's not enough for me to care about since it's more important for a photo to look good edge to edge. No one saves 100% crops to their PC or smartphone screens as wallpaper, and no one is printing them...

I've experimented with focus stacking, but for the subjects that I shoot and the magnifications it's just not worth it. Stacking comes with the same limitations as using a tripod -the subject has to be completely immobile, and I photograph a lot of semi active to hyperactive critters.

You really cant get over the fact that stacked images are taking macro to another level. get over it and move on.

Don

Agree, you can do things with stacking that just can't be accomplished otherwise.

One thing I haven't seen posted is the ability to make a relatively mediocre lens with inferior edge sharpness, but OK center sharpness produce a very good edge to edge sharp image. The AmScope 4X is an example: A single image from this isn't that good, especially the edges, but stacked it produces some very good images as you and some others have shown . Robert at Close-Up Photography 1st discovered this lens.

https://www.closeuphotography.com/seventeen-dollar-plan-4x-objective

The reason is that this lens is sharp on the edges but not when the center is focused, the edge focus is different than the center. By stacking the center and edge come into focus! Resolution is also slightly improved by stacking, since you are effectively co-adding somewhat like images. This is a subject for another thread though, probably best discussed over at PM where the experts (Rik, Lou, Robert, Miljenko) in this area reside.

Best,

Donald B wrote:

John K wrote:

Actually people are viewing my work on HDTVs and are impressed with the level of detail and the sharpness. I am losing some texture data to diffraction, but it's not enough for me to care about since it's more important for a photo to look good edge to edge. No one saves 100% crops to their PC or smartphone screens as wallpaper, and no one is printing them...

I've experimented with focus stacking, but for the subjects that I shoot and the magnifications it's just not worth it. Stacking comes with the same limitations as using a tripod -the subject has to be completely immobile, and I photograph a lot of semi active to hyperactive critters.

You really cant get over the fact that stacked images are taking macro to another level. get over it and move on.

Don

LMAO!

If you think that static frames of dead subjects is going to take off them you'll be waiting a long time. People have been focus stacking macro shots for several decades and the attitude of the general public to razor sharp, poorly lit and poorly composed images is "meh".

mawyatt2002 wrote:

You can continue to deny focus stacking or move forward and embrace focus stacking as a very useful and extremely powerful tool for producing stunning images as many folks here and elsewhere have done.

Best,

Impress me: Focus stack a moving subject...

John K wrote:

mawyatt2002 wrote:

You can continue to deny focus stacking or move forward and embrace focus stacking as a very useful and extremely powerful tool for producing stunning images as many folks here and elsewhere have done.

Best,

Impress me: Focus stack a moving subject...

Don't need too, check out the work of A. Kay mentioned. These are stacks in the field of live subjects in Ecuador, and helping the scientific community!! Check out the slow mo walking subject videos, they are incredible!, Created with an ingenious rotating spherical ball! You can follow these over at PM.

BTW, I'm not into insects just yet. The semiconductor chips at sub-micron levels is quite enough thank you!!

Best,