On 4/22/2017 8:44 AM, Don Holbrook wrote:
Beautiful photos!
Thanks!
Re the discussions on focus bracketing......any advice on choosing # of shots
and spacing vs subject?
Yup. The camera is doing some thinking for you, so it may be necessary to out think it on occasion. I believe the
following to be correct. In any case, acting on them works:
The camera uses focal length, aperture and it's own DoF table to determine the distance between focal planes of
exposures. You can further adjust this, without any certain precision, with "Set Focus Differential".
My experience (and that of Ctein) is that any setting higher than one invites waves of varying softness with distance
that I really don't like. I suppose such a setting might be fine for web size or small prints.
With Focus Differential set to one, the depth of the stack - the area that will be in focus in the stacked/merged image
- will vary with f-stop; smaller aperture = greater DoF = more spacing between slices = "deeper" stack. F5.6 is the best
IQ stop for most of the lenses.
My experience is with the E-M5 II, so part of my 'advice' is based on it. Its buffer will allow about 12-13 shots in a
second or so at higher shutter speeds. Go beyond that, and time between exposures becomes dramatically longer, because
the buffer is full. I have a mixed bag of cards. I see that one body has a UHS 1 and the other a UHS 3 card, so this
performance is probably somewhat different between them, but I've not measured it. (The E-M1 and 5 II bodies don't
support the increased speed of UHS 3; I'm assuming the '3' cards perform in them at '2' rates.)
Reviews of the E-M1 II comment on the huge buffer, so it would seem any setting
up to 100+ slices would be speedy on it.
On my E-M5 IIs, I have MySets on Fn1 and Fn2, one for 12 slices, the other for 23*. 12 is always quick in decent light
(12 1/20 sec. exposures take longer than 12 1/1000 exposures.) I usually go for f8-f10, for a deeper stack. The vast
majority of my stacks are shot hand held, and probably a majority of those in conditions where the subjects may move, in
addition to my movements, so exposures after the buffer fills can be problematic. When on a tripod, none of this much
matters; set a deep stack and wait a few seconds longer.
23 catches the full depth of more things. But the deepest flower on Columbine in Blue II is softer than it could have
been, with a deeper stack. Columbine in Blue IV didn't even need a full 12.
Other than the buffer problem, 'over' shooting is not a problem. Look at them in a browser and throw away any that go
beyond the deepest needed for the subject. I have had some problems with catching the closest bit in focus. I now use
for tripod shots, and focus slightly past-closer than even magnified MF shows. Hand held, I half-press, then move/lean
back slightly.
The alignment process in PS deals quite well with the camera movement between frames that my hand holding introduces. As
with any focus stacking, movement of parts of the subject can cause ghosting, often fairly easy to fix by hand, but time
consuming.
Movement between subject and background make it fail. In a stack of a poppy moving in a breeze, PS chose to use the soil
background as the subject to align, so the flower was all over the place. Sure, I was pushing the limits, how else am I
gonna learn what I can get away with.
This may be more than I really know. ;-) I hope it helps. Actually, thanks for asking; I think writing it all down has
clarified my own thinking.
In Deep Moose
* No, I don't know why 23, instead of 24 or even 25, it's just what I did. :-) I do know that I found 17-18 too often
insufficient.
On April 21, 2017 at 4:42 AM Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In the process of beating back the rose that was falling over everything,
on stem of the Columbine I posted an image of
a few days ago was broken off. So, it came inside - And - it's the time of
year when late afternoon sun blasts straight
in where we put flowers.
The whole thing, from bud to gone by.
<http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=21825>
Full flower. <http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=21829>
Bye-Bye <http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=21827>
All with PLeica 12-60 and Nikon 5T
Golden Light Moose
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