napabob Loc: Napa CA

holy minute detail batman.............. :shock:

Ramled Loc: Victoria, British Columbia

Very nice, great job! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

naturepics43 Loc: Hocking Co. Ohio - USA

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate all the positive comments.

gym Loc: Athens, Georgia

Fantastic!

mawyatt Loc: Clearwater, Florida

Superb image with great detail, well done sir!!
A 163 stack at 21 microns pitch is an impressive effort. Did you use an external battery pack with the SB-800, or did the internal batteries hold up? 1/32 power certainly helps I would think!

naturepics43 Loc: Hocking Co. Ohio - USA

Thanks, mawyatt. No, no external battery pack. I use the Eneloop rechargeable AA batteries. I've never done a test to see how many shots I can get out of a fresh set of batteries as I always switch them for a fresh set after a long stack. I do visually monitor the recycle time between shots & didn't notice any longer recycle time at the end of the stack.

mawyatt Loc: Clearwater, Florida

That's good to know they can last a full session. I use the Eneloops exclusively too. Quite a few years ago while doing some long sessions (~80) I saw some banding in some of the finalized stacked images. I was using a pair of SB-800s with some additional continuous "support" lighting. I wasn't sure if this was due to the variation in flash output or what, so I went with 120VAC powered strobes. Much later on I found that some of this banding was due to the JPEG compression algorithms, but I never returned to the SB-800 flashes as I had purchased a bunch of strobes. This was on a completely different type subject than insects where any exposure variation could show. I have seen this banding is some other JPEGs as well, so it can happen in other subjects. One example is an image of the Desert Gardens at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in Pasadena Ca, published in this Cultivating Curiosity book 2014. It's a full 2 page spread at the book's beginning if you look at the book. The top center blue sky exhibited these JPEG banding artifacts when the image was viewed in high resolution on a color calibrated monitor. Since I had the RAW camera image from my D800, this was not an issue and the book image was created from the RAW image.

I should mention that I shoot all my sessions in TIFF now, right from the camera. Earlier I had used RAW images that then needed to be converted to TIFF for the stacking software. This took a long time in LR. Then I found out the D800 can produce TIFF files directly, so I've gone that route and saved some post processing time.
Cheers and keep those stacked images coming, they are indeed impressive!

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Wonderful. I do hope we get to view more of your work in the future.....

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

OUTSTANDING.

naturepics43 Loc: Hocking Co. Ohio - USA

Interesting story, thanks for sharing. Yes, I'm very satisfied with the Eneloop's. I too have experienced .JPG banding. In my early attempts at stacking, from lack of knowledge, I used .JPG images.I have always taken .NEF (RAW) + .JPG fine but it took too long to convert to .TIF. When I got a better computer & Zerene Stacker, I've gone back & re-processed some of my "better" .JPG stacks with .TIF files. WOW! what a difference. Thanks for your encouragement. As has been said many time, I will continue to practice, practice, practice until I get it right.

naturepics43 Loc: Hocking Co. Ohio - USA

Thanks, Martin. I plan to post a little more than I did last year.

naturepics43 Loc: Hocking Co. Ohio - USA

Thanks for looking & commenting.

mawyatt Loc: Clearwater, Florida

I was talking with a colleague at lunch yesterday about this subject. JPEG is a really old algorithm that has some serious weaknesses, banding being one. Not sure why an updated or completely new version hasn't been introduced. I understand TIFF is just a bit/file packing algorithm that doesn't effect the information content. Nikon, Canon, Sony and others have their own custom RAW files. Would be nice if they would all get together and come up with a universal standard format that everyone would use and support, like JPEG, but with much better image quality retention.

We are throwing away a massive amount of image data with the JPEG algorithms, considering the cameras are capturing data at 14 bit resolution. Memory isn't that expensive now, and I believe most would trade a little extra image file growth for much better image quality retention. Now we use RAW or TIFF and the file growth is substantial, 2 to 8X in some cases. How about a Super JPEG that's only 20% larger than a regular JPEG file?

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

I have never used anything but jpg, start to finish.
Are you saying there is enough improvement using TIFF to be worth switching?

naturepics43 Loc: Hocking Co. Ohio - USA

I still take .NEF+.JPG fine. If I have doubts about the outcome of a stack, I'll run a quick .JPG stack. If I like it I'll take the extra time to convert the .NEF files to .TIF & use them for stacking. I'm able to handle the shadow areas much easier with the .TIF output file. My PP skills are very limited & I seem to have better luck with the .TIF files. I would suggest you try a couple of stacks taking & processing both raw & .JPG files & compare. I tried to find some examples to post but couldn't find any since I usually only keep the best ones. For me it is worth the extra time to convert raw to .TIF.