In-camera focus bracketing with Olympus OMD M1 part 2

g4lab · Post by **g4lab** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:19 pm

You need the M1 to get the Focus Bracket feature. However the focus stack will be very useful in the field.

The M5 mark II has focus bracketing. It does not have the in camera stacking.

You have to have or update to firmware version 2.0 or later.

wayupnorth · Post by **wayupnorth** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:22 pm

Apologies, thought it was the other way round.

wayupnorth · Post by **wayupnorth** » Wed Mar 23, 2016 3:02 pm

Found this bee walking very slowly on the pavement, not long for this world. Helped on it way by the freezer.

Still working on my lighting but too many other things to do at present so just posting these for reference.

Trying to get a natural pose proved difficult but I have been photographing cactii recently. The spines help keep the legs in position and I guess it may maintain the pose once dried out.

Impressed with the detail, especially in the eye.

OMD M1, 60mm Macro, 400 (ish) stack @ f2.8, step 1

OMD M1, 60mm Macro, 400 (ish) stack @ f2.8, step 1

OMD M1, 60mm Macro, 600 (ish) stack @ f2.8, step 1

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 3:23 am

The pose is good. With a flower in the same frame in the first shot it would be very realistic. What is the plant, Mammillaria carmeae? Also what is the odd white stuff, particularly noticeable between the eyes in the last shot, fungus, or a curious lighting artefact?

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 7:56 am

Isn't it just Pmax explosions? Try a waft with a DMap retouch brush?

wayupnorth · Post by **wayupnorth** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 9:31 am

It is mainly due to my lighting which needs diffusing. Plant is Mammillaria. If bee keeps its pose I will transplant to a suitable flower for another take. However this is only to give an idea as to the camera/lens performance so unlikely to work beyond 1:1.

Crop.

chuong nguyen · Post by **chuong nguyen** » Tue Apr 19, 2016 4:41 pm

The ease of use and speed is fantastic. Thanks for the info.

g4lab · Post by **g4lab** » Tue Apr 19, 2016 7:15 pm

Those rascals at Olympus have just come out with a new Pen F model which has a 20.5 mp mft sensor and high res mode that gives a 50 mp jpeg and 80
mp RAW file. (in case 40 and 64 aren't enough for you)

Also does focus bracketing and most everything the OM D models do. Not weather sealed.

wayupnorth · Post by **wayupnorth** » Wed Apr 20, 2016 12:54 am

Rumour has it that the EM-1 mk 2 will be out later this year so will be interesting to see what else they can pack in. High res & bracketing at the same time ?.

chuong nguyen · Post by **chuong nguyen** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 4:00 pm

I just want to share that the Olympus 40-150 2.8 could be used as tube lens with inf corrected lens/objective for stacking.

The image was taken with Olym Zoom at 150 FL + Nik CFI 4X .13 NA, 500stack.

g4lab · Post by **g4lab** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 4:32 pm

Was that done with Focus Bracketing ( I presume it was since you have 500 images.)
Beautiful Image!

chuong nguyen · Post by **chuong nguyen** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:43 pm

Yes, it was in-camera bracketing. Very fast and minimum vibration.

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 11:48 am

That's interesting, thanks for posting. Is this a n Olympus which does the image processing in the camera, or are you using Helicon/Zerene/...?

Do you have any idea how big the steps are? That's one of the mysteries of the camera! I would worry about it making the steps too big or too small. In this image it seems (from this size reproduction) to have done it well, but could there be "errors" one way or the other?
To point out the obvious, if you switched to a different objective you'd need a very different step size.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:23 pm

ChrisR wrote:if you switched to a different objective you'd need a very different step size.

Probably not so very different, at least from the camera's standpoint.

Assuming that the camera's lens does not extend as focus changes, then the camera is doing its focus stepping in the image space of the objective. As a result, the required step size is determined by the effective f-number resulting from the combination of NA and magnification, not by the subject-side NA alone.

There's not much difference in effective f-number for objectives in the range of 4X-10X. At higher magnifications, say 20X and 50X, there's only a modest change, and that's actually an increase in effective f-number which would lead to a larger allowable step within the camera.

Out on the subject side, of course, using a different objective would indeed change the effective step size by quite a lot.

--Rik

g4lab · Post by **g4lab** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 2:37 pm

Since the focus [bracketing] no Stacking uses the focusing motor in the lens , if I understand it correctly, (and if I don't my apologies) you only get the option to select it in the menus when you have certain Olympus lenses whose characteristics have been programmed into the system.

CORRECTION: Focus STACKING is only available with Olympus PRO and the Macro lens. Focus BRACKETING is available with any "Micro Four Thirds compatible lens with AutoFocus" Four Thirds lenses no.

You probably can compensate to an extent by selecting the mystery step size parameter if you add a diopter on the front or a smart extention tube and the camera doesn't realize it is there. But I think the list of lenses that focus bracketing works for is fairly limited. I don't think it is even all OM-D series lenses.

Edit I was indeed confused. The correct information is as follows: The focus stacking feature of the Olympus OM D M1 is only available with the PRO series lenses and the 60mm macro lens. The focus BRACKETING feature is available with all MicroFourThirds compatible autofocus lenses. Pretty cool imo.