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Images of undisturbed subjects in their natural environment. All subject types.

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vinceparadise
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Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:42 am
Location: Poole, UK

New member

Post by vinceparadise »

Hi, just joined the forum yesterday. Thought I'd post an image to see if it works ok and that I have done it right.

Joined the forum hoping to learn a little more about macro photography, maybe get some pointers, tips or trick.

I just recently started to dabble with stacking images but my efforts aren't as pleasing as I'd like

Anyway just a couple of run of the mill macro pics taken in my garden using a Nikon D850 + Sigma105 and off camera SB600 flash. Manual mode: 1/250 F20 ISO 400.

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ap
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Re: New member

Post by ap »

very nice even without focus-stacking!
andy

vinceparadise
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Location: Poole, UK

Re: New member

Post by vinceparadise »

ap wrote:
Tue Jul 05, 2022 6:17 pm
very nice even without focus-stacking!
andy
:D Cheers Andy :smt023

MarkSturtevant
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Re: New member

Post by MarkSturtevant »

Well done! It would be hard to focus stack these subjects. I know the D850 has focus bracketing built in, and you can practice with that with something not moving.
The diffuser on the flash will need some work to tone down the highlights, but otherwise these are quite good.
Welcome to the forum!
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

Olympusman
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Re: New member

Post by Olympusman »

Nice macro.

Mike
Michael Reese Much FRMS EMS Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

vinceparadise
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Re: New member

Post by vinceparadise »

MarkSturtevant wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 10:30 pm
Well done! It would be hard to focus stack these subjects. I know the D850 has focus bracketing built in, and you can practice with that with something not moving.
The diffuser on the flash will need some work to tone down the highlights, but otherwise these are quite good.
Welcome to the forum!
Hi Mark and thanks for comment and for welcome.

The focus stack attempt was on a dead beetle I found in the garden.

There seems to be many blurred areas and I don't seem to be able to be free of them no matter what methods or attempts I make. Although the under belly pic didn't come out too bad in the end.
I don't know whether its my capturing methods or processing methods

On the cropped one, you can clearly see a blurred sort of halo around the front leg in the foreground

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rjlittlefield
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Re: New member

Post by rjlittlefield »

The beetle stacks are a great start.

That band of blur around the front legs is what I call a "loss of detail halo". It is typical of depth map methods, such as DMap in Zerene Stacker and Method B in Helicon Focus. To greatly reduce that type of halo, you can use a pyramid method such as PMax in Zerene Stacker and Method C in Helicon Focus. But those can introduce their own artifacts, including other types of halo. When neither method of stacking will give a perfect result by itself, a good attack is to use retouching to combine the best parts of multiple methods. In Zerene Stacker, the default retouching brush is specifically designed to work well between PMax and DMap outputs. In Helicon Focus, you may need to check the box labeled "Texture only". (Standard disclosure: I wrote and support Zerene Stacker, so I'm very familiar with its internal and external operations. For Helicon Focus, I'm mostly just an observer.)

--Rik

MarkSturtevant
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Re: New member

Post by MarkSturtevant »

I for one would be very pleased with these pictures!
I can add that the tutorial videos in Zerene Stacker web site are very clear and helpful.
I use Zerene Stacker. The general approach that I use, which is probably a rather common one, is to start in DMap mode, which gives the better color tones and less noise, but also has more halo and transparency artifacts. In touch up mode, I use the PMax picture, which has less of these things, to touch up the problem areas. Individual frames can also be used to work on problem areas. If you use the slabbing method in ZS, then touching up can go faster.
Still, a complex subject like this hairy beetle can still retain artifacts that cannot be resolved. There are work-arounds to improve the picture further, including brute force cloning and healing tools in a photo editing program like Photoshop or Gimp -- the latter is like Photoshop, only its free.
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

vinceparadise
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Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:42 am
Location: Poole, UK

Re: New member

Post by vinceparadise »

rjlittlefield wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 4:02 pm
The beetle stacks are a great start.
--Rik
Thanks Rik, I have Helicon Focus and will try what you have suggested see if I can get batter results,

cheers

vinceparadise
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Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:42 am
Location: Poole, UK

Re: New member

Post by vinceparadise »

MarkSturtevant wrote:
Mon Jul 11, 2022 5:31 pm
I for one would be very pleased with these pictures!
Thanks Mark, I might have a look at ZS see how it differs from HF.

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