a bullet ant .... as a second try at stacking

[djonesii]

Dear forum ...

My second stacked image:



and a zoom



These were taken with a PhaseOne P30+, Mamiya 645 body, 80mm macro with spacer, studio light with shoot through umbrella, shot off a Gitzo tripod with a velmex linear stage. Around 100 images Zerene stack, DMap. Images converted from Raw to TIFF in capture one, then PP in Lightroom.

Please

[rjlittlefield]

That's some hefty hardware you're stacking with! Do I read correctly that P30+ is medium format, 31 megapixels?

Stacking seems to have gone extremely well. I'm a little surprised by no visible halos even around those hairs on the left side of head, where it looks separated from the leaf by a long ways. Is this really pure DMap, or is there some PMax mixed in?

One technical concern: there's an odd radial streaking pattern in the background. It's most visible here at left of leaf and in a band lined up with the bottom end of the leaf. But I pulled the image into Photoshop and expanded the contrast so I could be sure, and then I see a second band and a radial pattern over the whole background. I don't recall ever seeing this pattern before. Any idea what's going on?

--Rik

[Craig Gerard]

djonesii,

Welcome to the forum.

..........................................

Adjusting the Levels to 0, 0.33, 227 reveals the streaking (and halo) in more detail. There appears to be a distinctive pattern below the leaf, but the entire background exhibits 'streaking'.

Was there any other type of diffuser used for this image apart from the shoot through umbrella, a cylindrical tube perhaps?

Could you show us a single frame from the stack?

We enjoy solving mysteries


Craig

[rjlittlefield]

Oops -- I overlooked that magic "Posts: 1"

Yes, welcome to the forum!

We enjoy solving mysteries

I can see it now: "PMN: CSI" (Comprehensive Stack Interpretation)

--Rik

[ChrisR]

If you use "Curves" you see a whole starburst of radials emanating from 441,355.
They look straight. Scaling and rotation turned off?

You can see a 20 pixel halo round the subject too.
And those highlights are glaring and burned. The dude's a pro, he wouldn't have let that happen. It's got Pmax M.O all over it.
Book him Danno - murder 1.

Perhaps more helpfully Mr Jones - if you put a frame at the end of the stack with a much smaller aperture you can get the OOF area to look arguably "better". At the moment it suddenly goes all equally, very out of focus. It would look more more conventionally , going increasingly out.
A frame at f/32 does wonders, it's worth a few flashes.

[djonesii]

A few answers ...

Yes, this was shot with a medium format digital back. These days, it would be considered an entry level unit. 30 megapixel, 1.3 crop factor.

I think the lack of an AA filter is really helpful for macro. ( Just getting into it, but I have a feeling having done a few things before with MF!)

As to the halo's and such in the background, I have a feeling that they are the result of a bit overzealous use of one of the Topaz tools. As I recall on this image, I find a few issue with combining the sharpening and the image adjustment all in one go. I'm getting ready to post my next image, and I'm happy to work toward improvement by posting more ....

The way I'm heading, is that I think a bit more roll off of the image to OOF would be good. Just guessing, F32 will not be needed at all, I shoot tethered, and stop right at the end of the image.

The next area that I will be looking in is slabbing my stack runs.

Looking back over notes and such, the processing is mislabeled, this is P-Max, not D-Max.

One final issue, my last output step is in light room If any one on the forum needs the full rez images, or even a sample of the raw before I convert, just drop a note.

More to follow .....

I'm here to learn, thanks for all the input.

[rjlittlefield]

this is P-Max, not D-Max.

That would be "PMax" and "DMap". The abbreviations stand for Pyramid Maximum and Depth Map.

They are completely different algorithms that produce complementary artifacts. With a complex subject like you have, usually the best results come from processing both ways and then using Zerene's built-in retouching to combine the two. This is discussed in various Zerene tutorials, indexed HERE.

As to the halo's and such in the background, I have a feeling that they are the result of a bit overzealous use of one of the Topaz tools.

The halos around the subject look like typical PMax artifacts. Those will go away once you make friends with DMap. (Making friends is easier said than done, but there's a tutorial on that topic now, How To Use DMap.)

The next area that I will be looking in is slabbing my stack runs.

With a subject of this size and type, I think slabbing should be farther down your priority list. Once you figure out how to use DMap, I'll bet you get good results from the basic scheme of DMap, PMax, and retouch those two, with no slabbing and no going back to original source frames. Slabbing is a refinement from there; it helps DMap give better results and also simplifies retouching in some cases.

BTW, I'm the fellow who wrote Zerene Stacker. Nice to make your acquaintance!

--Rik

[djonesii]

Rik;

Still on the steep part of the learning curve.

Thanks for the info.

Dave

[Craig Gerard]

Oops -- I overlooked that magic "Posts: 1"

Yes, welcome to the forum!

We enjoy solving mysteries

I can see it now: "PMN: CSI" (Comprehensive Stack Interpretation)

--Rik

Here is a character depiction for the leading role (courtesy of Sean. He is keen to play the part.)




Craig

*I awoke late and haven't caught up with the day....yes, I should be doing something more constructive