Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Digital Cameras & Shooting Techniques => Topic started by: ErikKaffehr on August 31, 2009, 03:54:07 am

Title: Focus Merge using Helicon Focus
Post by: ErikKaffehr on August 31, 2009, 03:54:07 am

Hi,

Here is a focus merged image I shot yesterday. It was generated by Helicon Focus

http://83.177.178.241/ekr/images/FocusMerge.jpg (http://83.177.178.241/ekr/images/FocusMerge.jpg)

It is a slightly cropped 24.5 MPixel image.

Best regards
Erik

Title: Focus Merge using Helicon Focus
Post by: Ray on August 31, 2009, 05:48:07 am

Interesting exercise, Erik. Looks like a flawless result, although I would have preferred a different angle which allowed a more frontal view of the far figures.

How many images were merged for this shot and what F stop was used?

Title: Focus Merge using Helicon Focus
Post by: ErikKaffehr on August 31, 2009, 09:47:03 am

Ray,

I think you may be right on the composition. Reason for my choice was mostly a young lady who was sitting between the figures and would not improve on the picture. Of course I could have been polite and ask her to move...

Regarding the exercise it was eight pictures, 75 mm on FF at f/8.

Thanks for comments!
Erik

Quote from: Ray

Interesting exercise, Erik. Looks like a flawless result, although I would have preferred a different angle which allowed a more frontal view of the far figures.

How many images were merged for this shot and what F stop was used?

Title: Focus Merge using Helicon Focus
Post by: Craig Lamson on August 31, 2009, 05:33:28 pm

Quote from: ErikKaffehr

Ray,

I think you may be right on the composition. Reason for my choice was mostly a young lady who was sitting between the figures and would not improve on the picture. Of course I could have been polite and ask her to move...

Regarding the exercise it was eight pictures, 75 mm on FF at f/8.

Thanks for comments!
Erik

Helicon Focus is a super piece of software.  I wrote short review of it, biased toward casual users:

www.craiglamson.com/helicon.htm (http://www.craiglamson.com/helicon.htm).

I've been beta testing a new piece of software for them, Helicon Remote, which can automate the capture process when shooting tethered, and it works quite well.  I'm not sure when it is scheduled for release but if you shoot tethered and do focus stacks, this is a great way to do it.

Title: Focus Merge using Helicon Focus
Post by: JohnKoerner on September 10, 2009, 04:42:03 am

That is interesting Erik. Very nice results.

I myself am looking to give focus merging a try soon, so thank you for the inspiration to get moving on it

Jack

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Title: Focus Merge using Helicon Focus
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 10, 2009, 05:30:41 am

Thanks for feedback! ;-)

Erik

Quote from: JohnKoerner

That is interesting Erik. Very nice results.

I myself am looking to give focus merging a try soon, so thank you for the inspiration to get moving on it

Jack

.

Title: Focus Merge using Helicon Focus
Post by: DarkPenguin on September 12, 2009, 03:47:45 pm

I'll just toss this in here.  If one tries this with CS4 rather than Helicon Focus and it isn't working you might try dropping to 8-bits and cropping your images after the align stage but before the stack.  I had mostly memory issues.  I think dropping to 8-bit was enough to save me.  CS4 under Vista.  Dunno if any patches have fixed this.  I also do not know if anyone else ever had this issue.