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- BEST FOCUS STACKING SOFTWARE HOW TO
- BEST FOCUS STACKING SOFTWARE MANUAL
- BEST FOCUS STACKING SOFTWARE FULL
- BEST FOCUS STACKING SOFTWARE SERIES
I had already heard of Helicon Focus many years ago but for some reason dismissed it. I needed a more convenient and precise way to piece everything together.
BEST FOCUS STACKING SOFTWARE MANUAL
Once I had taken the first photos of the chaotic Costa Rican forest in Monteverde, I had enough of manual stacking. For some such photos, the stacking can take me as much as half an hour or even an hour. But especially when it comes to woodland photos it can be tricky to find and combine the sharpest areas. And for most photos, this is a viable option.
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Acceptably sharp is usually not sharp enough for the large prints I like to sell.īecause of the limitations of Photoshop's automatic stacking algorithm, which often leads to unsharp areas in the final photo that need to be fixed, I usually perform the stacking manually using masks in Photoshop. Using the hyperfocal distance while trying to get everything acceptably sharp with just one photo was always too much of a compromise for me. The only thing, you have to do after that, is an alignment step in Photoshop afterwards.įor the photo of the radio, I shot hand-held five images, and just changed the focus sensors in the camera for each shot (the reflection is synthetic).For more than 10 years I've now been stacking my landscape and architecture photos to achieve optimal sharpness from foreground to background. With the camera held against the eye, I just scroll through the focus sensors as I shoot the different images. I often use focus variation for my stacks, and sometimes even without a tripod. The little disadvantage of the changed image ratio is not a big hassle for the stitching programs and the advantage of the consistent overall perspective outweighs that by far. So, focus variation seems to be the perfect tool for everyday usage. And it is also much easier to maintain the same very small step width throughout the whole scanning process. This means, in our example, that Pawn #1 and #2 have the same size, but the black pawn in the front is larger.īut there are also advantages using a macro rail: This method is much easier automatized, and automated solutions are already available (>Strackshot / Cognivision). The continuous changes in perspective show totally different views of the scene and also introduce changes in the occlusions.Īnother disadvantage is, that using the macro-rail approach, a change in the perspective might also lead to a non-realistic impression: The telecentric perspective in the stacked and sharp area might collide with the classic entocentric perspective in the areas around. Imaging a carride through an urban canyon. First the length of the rail limits the DOF, second the changes in perspective make it hard for the stacking algorithm. It is not a good choice for shorter focal distances, for bigger objects and for more complex scenes with occlusions. FINAL THOUGHTSĪ macro rail is a good choice for tiny objects, shot with a tele macro lense of 100…150 mm. With a tiny bit of touch-up, one could repair the little errors and the result would be quite nice (given the complex scene). This result is still not perfect, but, as I said, it is straight-out-of-cam. This should be a really complex scene for any kind of stacking method, and so I think, it is a good choice.
BEST FOCUS STACKING SOFTWARE FULL
My little test scene is a chess board, and the view through the little chessmen is full of occlusions. One thing I can say to start with: With complex scenes, it is a good idea, not to change the position of the camera! : – )īut now, I wanted to know for sure what is the better method and and did some tests.
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Imagine for example shooting a landscape. Until now I always thought, that approach is a bit dirty, because it introduces changes in the magnification, but often it was the only way, because the depth of the object was far too deep for any rail.
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BEST FOCUS STACKING SOFTWARE SERIES
The main question is: Is it better to use a macro rail or is it better to vary the focus of the lens?Īs Alex, I use focus stacking (or “deep focus fusion”) quite often and most of the time I just shoot a series of photos with varied focus instead of a series with varied distance, using a rail.
BEST FOCUS STACKING SOFTWARE HOW TO
This tutorial is about how to obtain a large depth-of-field using focus stacking.