Resolution w Mirror up vs MU + 2 sec delay w StackShot

[rockdoctor]

I haven't posted in a long while or posted a picture as yet. I will do my best to get it right. I'm after the highest resolution using my canon rebel T3i with Canon's MP-E 65mm Macro lens. Thanks to Charles Krebs post and pictures at this link: http://krebsmicro.com/Canon_EFSC/index.html I was able to know that I was getting the EFSC up and out of the way.

After pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to make sure my electronic first shutter curtain was up and out of the way combined with Mirror up mode I finally figured out a way to get it. I control the T3i from the computer using EOS utility. I set the mirror up to enable. I set the Drive Mode to a timer delay of 2 seconds. I like to use StackShots Auto-Step mode. I have enough T-Settle time and Pluse times to where I'm about 6 seconds between shots.

If I didn't use the 2 second timer delay I was getting vibration from shutter movement whether using stack shot or EOS utility's shutter button. And when you exit Live View to let stack shot take over (without the timer delay) I would still see degraded resolution with my test shots. Each shot though was with Mirror up enabled, I didn't try disabling MU on any shots.

When I magnified my raw images shot in Light Room I could clearly see the difference between MU only and MU + 2 second timer delay. As Charles said EFSC is out of the way by default in Live View. The 2 second timer delay seemed be the only way to trick the camera into thinking it is shooting in Live View mode shooting with the first shutter curtain up and not moving.

Here are the 2 shots. They aren't stacked, it was shot at 4x with the MP-E 65mm, 1/40 sec, ISO 200, LED continous lighting, Manual mode, Auto WB. This is a tiny chip of sand where each grain is about 1/20th to 1/50th of a millimeter, tiny stuff. At this point I'm not concerned about anything other than resolution improvement. The first shot is much sharper when magnified to 200%, you can't really see here very well. Plus I shrunk these jepgs down from 10MB to 100KB to upload.

[Pau]

After pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to make sure my electronic first shutter curtain was up and out of the way combined with Mirror up mode I finally figured out a way to get it. I control the T3i from the computer using EOS utility...
...And when you exit Live View to let stack shot take over (without the timer delay) I would still see degraded resolution with my test shots.

Not sure, but I think you're missing something:
To have EFSC with that kind of EOS camera you just need to set live view on, no need of MLU, as both the mirror and shutter are open at the expossure beguinning .
But some settle time between shots will still be convenient because that kind of camera needs to cycle both the mirror and shutter at the expossure end.
EFSC is part of the camera LV function and you lose it when disabling LV. Then the camera will work like any DSLR without EFSC and you will find some advantage with MLU, but it wouldn't be as quiet as with LV.
Try letting LV on while shotting the stack.

[rockdoctor]

I will try that. But When I go to initiate a stack from the EOS Utility on my computer I have to close Live View otherwise StackShot won't start triggering my camera, so the logical assumption is EFSC is disabled as soon as I have to close Live View. Also it seems the pictures are clearer with the 2 sec time delay than without when letting stack shot trigger the shutter. But I will double check that some more pictures, with and without the delay.

[Pau]

... But When I go to initiate a stack from the EOS Utility on my computer I have to close Live View otherwise StackShot won't start triggering my camera, ...

Because I don't have a Stackshot I can't say what's happening, but I think that other members do use LV with this device. I guess that the problem is to use computer tethering toghehter with the Ss. Try to shot the stack in LV without computer tethering.
Likely Rik will give you the answer.

[JH]

I will try that. But When I go to initiate a stack from the EOS Utility on my computer I have to close Live View otherwise StackShot won't start triggering my camera, so the logical assumption is EFSC is disabled as soon as I have to close Live View. Also it seems the pictures are clearer with the 2 sec time delay than without when letting stack shot trigger the shutter. But I will double check that some more pictures, with and without the delay.

Probably you already know this. Anyway this is my experience: When I use Zerene Stacker to control StackShot and Canon EOS Utilitys Live View to see what I am doing, StackShot sometimes won't start triggering the camera. To solve this I close the Live View window on the computer. The problem is that this automatically closes the shutter and turns off the camera Live View. The solution is to push the Live View button on the camera and after that start StackShot.

Regards Jörgen

[rjlittlefield]

Quoting from step 9 at http://zerenesystems.com/cms/stacker/do ... y_software:

Press Live View button on camera so as to make the camera display the Live View image on its own monitor. (This is important. If the camera is in Live View mode but is not displaying the Live View image by itself, then the camera will ignore shutter commands coming from the StackShot.)

This is with T1i, but I expect that T3i has the same behavior.

--Rik

[rockdoctor]

I will try pushing the Live View on the camera itself and see if the image comes up on the screen then initiate stack shot. I did find that using the 2 second delay (from the drive mode menu on the camera) appears to initiate EFSC and retain it when I push the "UP" button to start stackshot slices. I will compare photos both ways.

What really amazed me was how much clearer the detail was when EFSC is maintained for each slice. The Mirror up improves it only a little bit just like Charles Kreb's photos showed in the link in my first post.

Regards
Doug

[rockdoctor]

I tried both methods of shooting slices in stackshot, MU enabled + 2 second timer delay as well as MU enabled and pushing the preview button on the 3Ti camera (<) to bring up the live view image on the camera screen then starting a stack.

I found that both methods yield exactly the same resolution and clarity of image. So either way will work, the nice part about using the (<) button is I don't have to listen to the timer countdown beeps during a 40 slice run on stack shot! If I don't use either of these methods the resolution degrades dramatically, EFSC is a must have feature.

I find most manuals lacking with their flow charts and lack of common sense explanations on which settings and radio buttons to push to get you the results you are after. Trial and error is a tough route to go but sometimes you learn a lot along the way.

Thanks for the tip, now I don't have to listen to timer beeping anymore.

Doug