Fern spore capsule and spore

Images made through a microscope. All subject types.

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pwnell
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Fern spore capsule and spore

Post by pwnell »

Taken under brightfield, 20x * 2 magnification. 110 image stack using Helicon Focus with method A (Weighted Average). This was by far the better stack between it and Zerene Stacker for this subject, normally Zerene wins.

Image
Last edited by pwnell on Sun Jul 22, 2012 8:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Pau
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Post by Pau »

Very nice!
Pau

Cactusdave
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Post by Cactusdave »

Super image. It would make a great stereo pair. The potential sense of depth looks terrific.
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rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Waldo and I have been talking about this stack, and he graciously sent me a copy with permission to post about it. The stack has some really fascinating aspects, very different from stacks I've worked with before. There'll be much headscratching while I figure out what all is going on.

For stereo, that part is easy as long as we stick to PMax. Here's one I did last night while I was trying to be sure about the geometry. Crossed eye; the shifts are at +-2%.

Image

--Rik

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Comparing the above PMax images against the Helicon Focus Method A image at top of thread, it's obvious that PMax has produced a much more "transparent" rendering of the structure. In the HF Method A image, the front surface of the capsule is rendered opaque -- we cannot see the spine of the capsule through the front surface in the rendering, even though obviously the scope can see through it in real life.

Producing an image like that with Zerene Stacker is not so easy. If we try to DMap the whole stack, then DMap gets confused in places and produces nasty "holes" where physically there aren't any. One fairly effective way around that problem is to do a Stack Selected DMap of just the front surface, then retouch that onto say a PMax of the whole stack, being careful to paint over only the parts we want to render opaque. Here's a stereo version of that approach:

Image

As you can see, this stack presents some interesting artistic issues in addition to the optical and algorithmic issues that I'm still looking forward to studying. This stack is great fun!

--Rik

Charles Krebs
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Post by Charles Krebs »

Very nice image.

Definitely prefer the second stereo version... great to look at.

Mitch640
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Post by Mitch640 »

Yes, the last stereo image seems to be the best. It's an amazing find.

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