On 11/19/2019 6:46 AM, Wayne Shumaker wrote:
Thanks out-of-breath Moose for all that information in one place. It really
helps.
My pleasure! Really, Answering questions about complex stuff generally improves
my own understanding.
At 11/18/2019 09:49 PM, Moose wrote:
I have not had great success with focus stacking using PS when taking photos
with a lot of cactus needles. For instance a shot like this (using Helicon
Focus and 6 images)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vkDVwpHqXpfiS9n16
Nice! But, like me, all too often, you have missed the closest focus, leaving
soft points nearest the camera. Panny has another mode available, starting with
current focus position, it alternates closer and further focal planes.
I was not clear on the focus bracketing. Can they be taken sequentially?
Yes, there are two modes, the one I described and one conceptually the same as Oly offers. I say "conceptually the same"
because the parameters don't have exactly the same effects. If I knew more than that generalization, I would offer it.
Oly's firmware clearly has DoF tables/calculations available to it, and uses them to determine actual distance between
slices. If one changes the f-stop, without changing the 'focus differential', the distance between slices changes. It
appears that setting 'focus differential' sets something like maximum CoC.
So, for example, leaving bracketing parameters unchanged and stopping down, increases the focal range covered by the
shots. I found this non-intuitive, and, of course, not explained by Oly anywhere I looked. OTOH, once understood, it's
not hard to find settings that do what I want.
On Panny, it seems that "step" (='focus differential') may not be relative, perhaps absolute. And, at moderate
apertures, finer grained than is possible on Olys.
I have not investigated this with the attention I gave the then new to me Focus Bracketing of the E-M5 II. I got the
Panny's not long before a busy Spring/early Summer in Bhutan, Seattle area and S. Utah. I did little photography in the
Summer, then a seven week trip in the Fall. I did do a few brackets that came out rather well in the Summer.
<https://photos.app.goo.gl/hLJ2iMvzXmCUAyaQA>
And, for another example: <https://photos.app.goo.gl/CYog2ijrFC9hadVw8>
I suspect the only way to know for sure how both work, and what their differences are, would be test shots of the
classic tape measure . . .
It may be of interest to know that I do a fair amount of casual focus bracketing simply by taking 2-3 shots, focused on
different parts of the subject.
Here a couple of rather casual, sloppy shots make a nice stack.
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Focus%20Stacking/Dandy.htm>
Here is a good description of the various methods for stacking in Helicon focus:
https://www.heliconsoft.com/helicon-focus-main-parameters/
The Helicon focus has three methods. I most often use the B method, which
requires the images be in consecutive order, front to back. It will also create
masks and you can export the layers for PS. Focus bracketing that alternates
from a starting focus point would make it very inconvenient.
Not ideal in PS, either. As the order is fixed, alternating in order, one could use a renumbering scheme to get them in
order, front to back. Bulk Rename Utility would make it fairly easy. Or I could dust off my coding skills.
Stack 'Em UP Moose
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