Upped My Macro Focus Bracketing Game

I image the tiny world of mosses, liverworts and lichen.  With my R5 Cannon and RF 100mm 1.4X lens, I shoot about 20-44 exposures via focus bracketing per final image.

Before I upgraded my system it would take 10-12 hours to denoise 1500 or so shots in DXO DeepPrime XD - approximately 27 seconds/shot.  I don't use a tripod.  I position my body as stably as I can, using my camera pack to rest the R5. Of course, I need to shoot as fast as possible. Forests can be dim places, so my ISOs range from 1000 to 12,000.  Deep Prime works very well, but can claim a lot of time.

I just upped my game with a new Power Spec desktop (Ryzen 9 7900X, RTX 3800, and a Win11 USP 3.2 equipped MoBo).  My RAW image denoising time is now 6.7 seconds/image.  Am I pleased?  Well, yeah.  I might add, with the upgrade ASUS MoBo, I can also take advantage of CF Express and reader.

A few recent shots attached for fun.

"British Soldier" lichen advancing thru field of Dicranum moss

Buxbaumia sporophyte - so beautiful, and , for me, so rare.

Liverwort, moss, lichen pastiche

Cladonia arbuscula

Dog tooth lichen

Back lit Pixie Cup lichen

This lot looks a lot better than the one earlier.  I really liked looking at them.

My macro lens has extreme breathing problems.  For focus bracketing I think my 70-300 mm lens would work much better.  It has almost no focus breathing.

carltj wrote:

Back lit Pixie Cup lichen

One thing I noticed (in the above shot) and in some of my shots is a halo that I believe comes from an inability of your stacking s/w to correctly size/map an oddball shot in the stack. In your case I suspect this is due to the "soft" mounting of your camera (v. using a fixed tripod for example).

I wonder if using a dedicated stacking tool would do a better job? I haven't decided if I need something like Zerene or Helicon since Affinity has been doing a reasonable job. The shot I did most recently was only 15 images but they were shot with the camera on a rail on a tripod. The rail was manually tweaked between shots (that were triggered with a remote). Even so, you can see a halo along the furthest curved upper edge.

- Gary

Thanks for looking past the flaws (ghosting) to appreciate the whole impact of the image.

Yes, some minor camera movement is likely the culprit.  If a tripod would wholly obviate this outcome, I might use it more often.  But, I shoot on cliff faces, hanging out over brook water, or catching a lichen well up on a tree trunk.   Easy access for tripod set up in the forests I move thru is rare.

I do have tripods and have tried to work them into my field workflow, where possible.  Bottom line, I just move too quickly, covering the terrain.  The use of a tripod would hugely increase my time per image. I could get several better shots, but way fewer images than I get now.  I try to stabilize my body (feet, legs, knees, hips elbows, shoulder - whatever works) against firm points of contact before taking up the camera, hold my breath, and shutter-press on two second delay. if I press the shutter to prematurely end the series, I'll often discard the last two shots.

I often observe, "Ten seconds in shot prep or ten minutes in editing?"  In this instance, that aphorism would have to be reversed.  Jarring instances of ghosting I address with a bit of Retouching in Helicon.  The rest I just accept.

To date I've not done any field macro shots so I understand your "no tripod" approach for what you're shooting.

I'm not familiar with your EOS R5. When you shoot, does your camera automatically capture the required number of shots? I know that my MFT cameras will do that. I've had more luck taking doing manual shutter clicks (via a remote trigger).

How do you like Helicon? What did you use prior?

- Gary

Gary,

The R5 is a 45 meg sensor flagship Canon camera.  It can tick thru 45 focus bracketed exposures in 2 or 3 seconds.  I use electronic shutter.  Thru the viewfinder you can see the plane of focus advancing.

Helicon was my choice - the only other contender was Zerene.  Forgot reason for my choice - maybe cost.  Serious imagers are happy with either from what I read.  I am very satisfied with Helicon.  Not hard to master a workflow.  It is blazing fast.  Maybe 12 seconds to load 40 shots and render them.  Used PhotoShop for a time: clunky, slow, and tedious.

Carl

really good.