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Focus stacking problem

photoshop align

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4 replies to this topic

#1
bani12

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I tried focus stacking technique yesterday on a flower. I placed my camera on a tripod and then I manually focused from front to back of a flower. That way I got about 20-25 photos. I imported all images to photoshop and aligend and auto-blend them.

 

From afar it looked good but when I zoomed in, I saw this (100% crop):

1.jpg

 

Does anyone know how to get rid of that? Am I doing something wrong?

 

Thank you for all your help!



#2
Merco_61

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Most lenses change their focal length slightly when focussed close. This gives very strange artifacts when stacking as the layers are impossible to align. Dedicated stacking software like Zerene stacker or Helicon focus handle this better than PS, but far from perfectly. The best approach is to use a focusing rail and learn patience as all vibrations have to settle for each exposure if the layers are to contain the best and sharpest slices of reality you can get. Even a cheap rail from the ebay vendors is usable, but a Novoflex or RRS rail are much less frustrating to use. I am considering a servo rail too replace my very old and worn Novoflex but the cost is high for a very specialized piece of equipment.



#3
bani12

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Most lenses change their focal length slightly when focussed close. This gives very strange artifacts when stacking as the layers are impossible to align. Dedicated stacking software like Zerene stacker or Helicon focus handle this better than PS, but far from perfectly. The best approach is to use a focusing rail and learn patience as all vibrations have to settle for each exposure if the layers are to contain the best and sharpest slices of reality you can get. Even a cheap rail from the ebay vendors is usable, but a Novoflex or RRS rail are much less frustrating to use. I am considering a servo rail too replace my very old and worn Novoflex but the cost is high for a very specialized piece of equipment.

 

Thank you so much for this, Peter! I really appreciate it. I will download a trial version of one or the other program and give it a try. I hope it will turn out better than the photoshop version. If not, I will have to look into the rail system.

One question about rails, if you don't mind. How does it actually work? You focus on one part and then just move the camera along the rail and take different exposures without touching the focus ring?



#4
Merco_61

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Exactly! You focus on the nearest part you want in focus, take the first photo and then just move the camera the thickness of a slice, check that nothing has moved in the finder, raise the mirror, wait for the vibrations to die and take the photo. Rinse and repeat until you have the slices you need for the stack.



#5
bani12

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I am happy to report improvement with the mentioned software :) ! Helicon focus did slighty better job than PS, but the Zeren stacker has done it almost perfectly this time. This also means I will leave the rail system idea alone for now.

 

Here is a 100% crop from Helicon focus:

2.jpg

 

Here is a 100% crop from Zeren stacker:

3.jpg

 

And here is the whole image stacked with Zeren stacker:

stack-001.jpg

 

Thank you again for your help, Merco_61!







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