Best way to achieve deep DOF on multi-gigapixel field of flowers photo?

[lostsole]

Hi,

I'm new here and I hope this is the best forum section to put this question. I do lurk a lot here and many of you folks obviously know your stuff.

My situation is as the title mentioned, I need to shoot up close, fields of flowers, stream banks, etc., where say the field of flowers, one flower petal in the foreground may take up most of one full frame within the multi-gigapixel image. I need to find a way to have maximum sharpness throughout the image. The project will be for online viewing at 100% for the specific reason of viewing extreme detail, not for print.

Just so you know what I'm working with. I'm currently using a D800 + Nodal Ninja Ultimate M2 with R8 rotator. I have the Nikon 200mm f/2g VRII and a Nikon 50mm 1.8.

I'm trying to figure out what products would come close to working for deep DOF and not have too many distortion or parallax errors when stitching the multi-gigapixel image. I have looked at various tilt shift lenses such as Schneider and Hartblei, and products such as the Cambo X2 Pro, Horseman VCC pro, Cambo Ultima 35, etc., but am not sure if those types of products will work with what I'm trying to do. For the latter listed DSLR systems, it is hard to find much information much less in regards to what I'm trying to do. I also might mention I don't have a large budget and the project is temporary. I don't have any knowledge of how to utilize view camera types of systems, but of course am willing to learn if that is what I need to pull this off.

Another idea I had was blue screening sections of the flowers that are sharp, to later cut and layer together, but that would be a pain.

With the wind always prevalent in our area, I can't see focus stacking working either.

Any thoughts or ideas for me of what might work best? At the moment I'm thinking a plain old tilt shift lens may be my best bet. I didn't want to purchase until I got some advice, hopefully.

Many thanks for any help!

[BernardLanguillier]

If you really need multi giga pixel quality for this application, I would rent a 8x10 or 11x14 camera and get a professional drum scan.

Now, depending on the image you have in mind, tilt will probably not enable an image fully in focus. You may get the main flower and the distant ones sharp, but the area below the front flower will typically not be in focus. It does in fact help keep the eye on the main subject but may not work for you.

Another option would be to use spherical stitching with 3 different lenses:
1. A wider lens to capture the main flower fairly close,
2. A normal lens to capture the foreground left and right of the main flower,
3. a long lens to capture the distant ones.

I am fairly certain there is a way to work with this, but it would take a bit of time to get it right.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Bernard

[lostsole]

Thanks Bernard!

I don't much want to venture into film as I have zero experience with it. However, the latter ideas you mentioned sound intriguing and I will give that a try. Your are right, it will take some practice and experimentation, but I think it can be done. Thanks so much for your input!

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

However, the latter ideas you mentioned sound intriguing and I will give that a try. Your are right, it will take some practice and experimentation, but I think it can be done.

Hi,

It may be possible to do, but it depends a lot on the actual scene layout how it's done best.

Using a longer focal length, as is customary in Gigapixel scenes, also reduces the angle of view per shot. That allows to refocus, and attempt to get the partial shot in adequate focus for the main area of the tile, and part of the overlapping area with other tiles. If there is still a lot of DOF required for a specific tile, then focus stacking can be considered (but it will add a lot of additional images and work to accomplish the project, and windy shooting conditions are a spoilsport).

Refocusing combined with stitching will require the use of a competent dedicated stitching application, such as PTGUI or Hugin, which allows to compensate (with the focal length parameter) for the image magnification differences caused by changing the focus distance.

Planning for such a shoot, with variable DOF zone depths and/or focus-stacking, can be made a bit easier with my Depth of Field output quality planning tool. Some scene layouts are relatively simple with refocusing, others (especially those with occlusions) will be hard to practically impossible to do.

Cheers,
Bart

[lostsole]

Bart,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I checked out your dof calculator and I will think on how better I can plan this out utilizing the tool. I also read the article. Oddly enough, the photo of a field of flowers with mountains in back was very much like the field I plan to shoot. So, I enjoyed reading it. I've shot probably 50ish gigapixel photos so far and I sure agree with the article that chasing light and dof issues are the big gotcha's. If I see a partly cloudy day when I go to shoot, I just go back in the house and do something else. LOL!

Thanks again for your advice and dof tool!

[lostsole]

Ironically, I figured if the photo had some serious focus problems, I would patch in sharp areas over fuzzy ones and then slice the image up, put it into one of the painting programs and do exactly that to hide the flaws at the finer levels, then stitch it back together. : )

[jsiva]

Don't this kind of work, but...

Can you use a combination of long-lens (avoiding perspective distortion) and focus stacking with something like Helicon Focus. One nice you lay out your scene you can take shots at various focus planes, stack them with Helicon Focus and then stitch.  I assume you could stitch each scene and stack as well, all depends on how things line up.  I think Helicon focus takes care of lens breathing (resulting in slight magnification changes for each subject distance), which could save you a lot of time.  They do have a trial version you could test drive.

There is also the Brenizer method, again not sure how it could apply here, but something you may want to explore as well.
http://blog.buiphotos.com/2009/07/the-brenizer-method-explained-with-directions/

[lostsole]

Thanks for the article, it was interesting. I always like to learn new techniques in this segment.

The pattern he started out with on the model is similar to the pattern I had to use on the Grand Teton the other day due to clouds. Normally I zig zag across the full horizontal plane, but because of the clouds I shot as he did in the middle to capture the mountain before more shadows moved in. It worked better. I still blew the photo however by not having the camera set to manual. So, back I go again. : S

On the focus stacking, I mentioned I likely will be fighting wind. However, I think what I will do is try several different photos of the same area, each utilizing suggestions given here and also one overall shot with the intention of trying focus stacking. The flowers are not very tall so wind "may" not be as big an enemy as I think. Then, perhaps focus stacking will work at least on part of the image or all. If it works on part of the image, that may be something I can cut and paste into another one of the sections where that same area did not work or vice versa in another experimental photo area.

Thanks for your comments!