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Author Topic: Focus Blend tutorial  (Read 29478 times)

jjj

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« Reply #20 on: March 09, 2009, 04:17:30 pm »

I hope you realise that according to certain LL posters, that what you did isn't actually photography and your print is therefore not a photograph.
Apparently 'Photography' only happens when you push the shutter, everything else is not photography!??!  
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DanPBrown

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« Reply #21 on: March 09, 2009, 04:35:20 pm »

Quote from: jjj
I hope you realise that according to certain LL posters, that what you did isn't actually photography and your print is therefore not a photograph.
Apparently 'Photography' only happens when you push the shutter, everything else is not photography!??!  
I've run across such attitudes before. I may write a bit in my blog about "discrimination" in the art community soon.
Dan
http://www.danbrownphotography.com
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elf

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« Reply #22 on: March 10, 2009, 01:52:32 am »

Here's a focus stacked panorama/mosiac of a pansy I did in 2006 with 383 images. I have a 1/4 size print at 16x20 hanging in my office.

This image actually went together very easily compared to the amarylis attempt.
More details at http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2/viewtopic....highlight=pansy
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framah

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« Reply #23 on: March 10, 2009, 09:44:10 am »

Dan, that is a  beautiful piece and the framing was just right for it except as a framer I would have made the purple inner mat a tad bit smaller... just barely an accent.

At $800, I would have no problem with that price and you might be surprised that you could get more for it.  If is was my busy season here, i might go ahead and buy it myself!!  Right now, I am just hanging on till my season starts.

Where are you located?

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DanPBrown

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« Reply #24 on: March 10, 2009, 04:49:26 pm »

Quote from: framah
Dan, that is a  beautiful piece and the framing was just right for it except as a framer I would have made the purple inner mat a tad bit smaller... just barely an accent.

At $800, I would have no problem with that price and you might be surprised that you could get more for it.  If is was my busy season here, i might go ahead and buy it myself!!  Right now, I am just hanging on till my season starts.

Where are you located?
I'm located in southern NH, next to Nashua. It was a struggle for me to decide on the mat color for this piece. I get a lot of positive feedback from people at my shows about the framing. The inner mat has a 3/8" reveal. It also has AR glass.
Do you own a retail business? I went through Ellsworth last August on my to and from Acadia.
Dan
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DanPBrown

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« Reply #25 on: March 10, 2009, 04:50:57 pm »

Quote from: elf
Here's a focus stacked panorama/mosiac of a pansy I did in 2006 with 383 images. I have a 1/4 size print at 16x20 hanging in my office.

This image actually went together very easily compared to the amarylis attempt.
More details at http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2/viewtopic....highlight=pansy
Nice piece Elf. What did you use for equipment for that shot?
Dan
http://www.danbrownphotography.com
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DanPBrown

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« Reply #26 on: March 10, 2009, 04:52:23 pm »

Quote from: elf
First, let me say this image is beautiful both from a composition and exposure standpoint.  The focus stacking is just a bonus

To save you some experimenting: Photoshop's focus blending is worthless for closeups and macros unless you're only doing very small images to display on the web.  It is not able to reliable select the best focus parts of each image.

Helicon Focus, CombineZP, Microsoft ICE, PTAssembler/Tufuse can all align images for a focus stack. For manual blending, I like Microsoft ICE since it will output the images as layers in Photoshop format. This makes it relatively easy (but tedious) to blend.  I have a 600 image focus stacked pano (mosaic) of an Amarylis that I'm waiting for the software to get better before finishing.  It's 35 frames and was taking about 8 hours to manually blend each frame. Just 7 weeks working full time could finish it   I'm impressed that you were able to complete your project.

The forums at http://www.photomacrography.net have quite a few people who are very knowlegeable about focus stacking.  You may want to show your snowflake image there to get suggestions on how to tweak the settings in Helicon Focus.

p.s. Try using ICE to create a Deep Zoom of the image so we can all enjoy it full size.
Thanks for the info.
Dan
http://www.danbrownphotography.com
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daws

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« Reply #27 on: March 10, 2009, 05:52:47 pm »

Beautiful!
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elf

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« Reply #28 on: March 10, 2009, 11:13:50 pm »

Quote from: DanPBrown
What did you use for equipment for that shot?
Dan

Olympus e330 with 35mm macro, natural light.  I was quite fortunate there was no breeze that day.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2009, 11:54:32 pm by elf »
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michaelnotar

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« Reply #29 on: March 27, 2009, 04:20:00 am »

how are you getting such a large combined file size, i dont understand that. if you are composing one image not moving the camera, shooting multiple shots at different points of focus, and combining the sharp area in each image into one, arent you at the same original res as one shot?

is there any panorama shifting/stitching going on here, cuz thats the only way for more res. but combine that with focus blending and thats insanely complicated.

also, what is the difference between art and fine art?
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DanPBrown

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« Reply #30 on: March 27, 2009, 07:52:07 am »

Quote from: michaelnotar
how are you getting such a large combined file size, i dont understand that. if you are composing one image not moving the camera, shooting multiple shots at different points of focus, and combining the sharp area in each image into one, arent you at the same original res as one shot?

is there any panorama shifting/stitching going on here, cuz thats the only way for more res. but combine that with focus blending and thats insanely complicated.

also, what is the difference between art and fine art?
Yes it was stitched as well as focus blended. I used a 1dsmk2 so it didn't take as long to stitch to 61 megapixels.
Art fine Art? Is that from the last post on my blog? I don't know the answer, I do think it would be different for everyone.
Dan
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marcmccalmont

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« Reply #31 on: March 30, 2009, 02:46:18 am »

Quote from: DanPBrown
I'm located in southern NH, next to Nashua. It was a struggle for me to decide on the mat color for this piece. I get a lot of positive feedback from people at my shows about the framing. The inner mat has a 3/8" reveal. It also has AR glass.
Do you own a retail business? I went through Ellsworth last August on my to and from Acadia.
Dan
When I lived in Wilton, Carl at the color shop had both a great eye and selection of mats and frames. It has been 8 years so I don't know if he is still there but he always did my wife's art justice. A great resource worth checking out. BTW your images are spectacular and got me interested in focus stacking!
Thanks!
Marc

My first attempt tonight with helicon focus

[attachment=12590:Moss2.jpg]
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Marc McCalmont

JeffKohn

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« Reply #32 on: March 30, 2009, 10:38:44 am »

Quote from: DanPBrown
I think you are correct, a longer focal length would be less breathing, all else equal. BTW, I used the 180mm macro for this shot.
Dan
http://danbrownphotography.com/
I'm not so sure it has much to do with focal length, but rather lens design. Internal-focusing lenses seem to breath a lot more, they change their focal length when you focus closer down from infinity. So a macro lens that uses extension rather than IF should be good for this use.
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Jeff Kohn
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Derry

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« Reply #33 on: March 30, 2009, 08:36:05 pm »

I have one comment  "WOW",,

Derry
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DanPBrown

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« Reply #34 on: March 30, 2009, 08:51:27 pm »

Quote from: marcmccalmont
When I lived in Wilton, Carl at the color shop had both a great eye and selection of mats and frames. It has been 8 years so I don't know if he is still there but he always did my wife's art justice. A great resource worth checking out. BTW your images are spectacular and got me interested in focus stacking!
Thanks!
Marc

My first attempt tonight with helicon focus

[attachment=12590:Moss2.jpg]
Can we see a 100% crop of the moss Marc?
Dan
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marcmccalmont

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« Reply #35 on: March 30, 2009, 10:06:48 pm »

Sure, I'm glad you asked because it has artifacts and is fuzzy so if you don't mind passing along how to correct the problem, I'd appreciate it, again my first attempt. Perhaps too complex an object for stacking?
Marc

[attachment=12605:Moss2crop.jpg]
and one of the original frames
[attachment=12606:IMG_1972_DxO_raw.jpg]
« Last Edit: March 30, 2009, 11:23:30 pm by marcmccalmont »
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Marc McCalmont

marcmccalmont

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« Reply #36 on: March 31, 2009, 03:56:11 am »

Dan
Second try, heavy tripod, f18, iso 400, 14 images vs 7
Marc
[attachment=12608:Moss3.jpg]
[attachment=12609:Moss3crop.jpg]
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Marc McCalmont

DanPBrown

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« Reply #37 on: March 31, 2009, 08:54:46 pm »

Quote from: marcmccalmont
Dan
Second try, heavy tripod, f18, iso 400, 14 images vs 7
Marc
[attachment=12608:Moss3.jpg]
[attachment=12609:Moss3crop.jpg]
Helicon likes a small aperture, the downside is softness due to diffraction.
Dan
http://www.danbrownphotography.com
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Mike L.

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« Reply #38 on: April 02, 2009, 02:19:10 am »

I find Helicon Focus works well for photographing still life--it's a reasonably painless way to achieve a large depth of field without having to incur the resolution loss associated with using small apertures, although it's necessary to carefully examine the composite image for artifacts.  Magnified live view capability in the camera really helps with accurately focusing each frame.  For anyone that may be interested, I've posted an article on the subject at http://home.earthlink.net/~mikelevyonline/...hotography.html .

[attachment=12667:Photographica.jpg]
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