lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Dear Fellow True Macro Ugly Hedgehogers:

Here is another of my images shot with my new WeMacro (Focus Stacking) Rail. This is a flower from my backyard. I think it is about 3cm or less deep. It is an on-going learning experience. Please read through and feel free to answer my questions and make comments or ask me questions. When I have the chance I will photograph my set up as used here and post that too.

Photographed ruler to determine actual magnification; crop factor APS-C sensor:
23mm/44mm = 0.52x
DoF: 1.2mm
Camera: Pentax K-3 (24MP)
Lens: Nikon El-Nikkor 75mm f/4 Enlarging Lens
Pentax Manual Extension Tube K #1
Pentax Bellows Unit II M42
Camera set for Manual Focus and Manual Exposure
M42 to K Adapter Ring
Exposure: ISO 200, f/8, 1/15 second
Lighting: Single 5000K LED bulb & SmallRig Pix M160 RGBWW LED Light 5000K

With this Bellows + Tube combination the lens will not focus at infinity and the starts at about half life size on the sensor. And of course gives higher magnifications for small objects that I will try next time I think.

WeMacro Rail Program:
Stacked in distance mode
Shutter waiting time 1 s
Shutters per step 2
Interval of shutters 1 s
Backlash 180 um
Run Mode by Distance
After done Return
Step length 0.75mm(fast)
Total distance 34500um
Total steps 46 steps

By-the-way, I have a question about the RAW files I get from these stacks. Because the instructions have you shoot two images for each step to avoid camera shake and thus you delete the first of each image of each step, this is an issue. It seems odd I have all three “units” (Camera, Rail, SmallRig LED) running off of AC power through transformers to DC voltage, saving battery use. I am not sure how to set up the rail program for Start to End mode. I copied some of the Zerene tables from their website. Those, and with Sippyjug104 and WeMacro’s instructions has me going thus far. So far I am not totally happy with the Stacking program built in to Adobe’s Photoshop. There are often weird remnants and haze around edges in my stacked images. Or is that just requiring more skill at “cleaning up” with Ps? I have used Ps stacking many times for many years. Would the Zerene Stacker program do better? Zerene Stacker is not free! - Mike

(Download)

BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

Very nice, detail is superb throughout the image.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

lamiaceae yes, striking photos, and you gave cookbook details to help UHH people do fine work.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Thank you for the complement. Yes, I imagine that might be helpful to others trying something similar, but I put all those details so others more experienced with the technique could give me advice. I have only been using the automatic WeMacro Rail for a few attempted focus stacks. There were many failed attempts and it takes hours just to set up a series of exposures. That posted image was the result of the last stack for that flower. It came out nicely and more easily after several others.

I have not posted the next different tiny flower I stacked at higher magnification and a stack with initially 151 steps and exposures. The shooting took only two tries but I had a horrible time creating the focus stack in Photoshop. I virtually freezes my PC. And my Dell tower has 32GB of RAM and an over 3GHz 4core i7 with hyperthreading. Seems Ps CS6 does not use more than one thread or core at a time. The initial unflattened stack ended up being 34GB!!! And for some reason Ps did not like stacking camera made JPGs. I virtually never shoot JPGs, but this time I tried it that way thinking it would be easier and run faster. It was not! I finally after hours of frustration, converted the JPGs to DNGs with the ACR. Now the huge stack ran in reasonable time. I was also able to eliminate about 40 images from the beginning and end of the sequence that were beyond the in-focus range of DoF planes.

Perhaps I should try the Zerene Stacker program over Ps for this? Free to try, but fee to keep using after 30 days. Again any comments or help appreciated. Thank you.

randave2001 Loc: Richmond

I like the results.

jackm1943 Loc: Omaha, Nebraska

I'm still in the learning process with my new WeMacro also, and having lots of fun learning. Yes, Zerene is well worth the expense, much better than PS IMO. For 1X and less macro/close-ups, I recently purchased a mirrorless that does focus bracketing provided the lens is autofocus. Much easier than using the WeMacro for close-ups.
Oh...very nice image. 👍

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Great. I'll be posting another image later today, Monday. Had a whole new batch of issues! Hope you are enjoying your rail too.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Mike,

I have some good news that I believe that you will enjoy. I came across a dedicated focus stacking program that is "FREE". Yep, it is truly free with no advertising nagging. It's called PICOLAY and here's the link.

http://www.picolay.de/index.html

It is an amazingly small program file size and it is jam-packed with features flexibility. It accepts a variety of file image formats including RAW. I've run several sessions on it yesterday and today and I am very, very impressed.

Enjoy, Sippy.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Wow, OK. I'll try it on the same batch of files from last night and see how it compares to Ps.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Mike, I came across this focus stacking program via a microbiology website of "The Microbe Hunter" which I have been following now that I have my new compound microscope to get tips and ideas.

He and others use it to focus stack images via the microscope and of course, it works on any image and it is a pleasant surprise that it works with numerous file types.

I ran a comparison using Zerene Stacker and this program and I could not see a difference in the final images.

Some of the text is a bit different, like the closing screen which I think is in Danish, however, I made my way through it. The user manual is included in the download as well as some sample files of diatoms to focus stack.

jackm1943 Loc: Omaha, Nebraska

I just ran a set of pics thu both Zerene and Picolay. Picolay final image doesn't appear to me to be quite as sharp or contain as much detail as the Zerene final image but I had to enlarge to about 200% to see a difference.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Jackm1943, I truly agree with you. Having run an untold number of sessions using Zerene Stacker Pro and Helicon Focus 7, I don't believe that there are any current dedicated focus stacking programs that compare to either of them. In my opinion, they are presently the best programs that one could buy for professional results and customizable configurations.

Zerne is my go-to program for stacks under 500 images. Over 500 images I use Helicon which processes them in about 1/3 or less of the time. I prefer the many user settings that Zerene offers and I enjoy the editing feature when I need it over that of Helicon.

For the casual user or a user that shoots a smaller number of images in their stack, I'm finding Picolay to be a very nice "FREE" focus stacking software and I believe that it would make a good introductory program to get a user accustomed to the ins and outs of focus stacking so that they can make a more informative decision on what to invest in for a pro-level software.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I just this afternoon and evening obtained both Picolay and Zerene and tried them on my same set of 150 and 110 image WeMacro focus stack that was giving me fits and taking forever using PhotoShop. For some crazy reason Ps did not like that many JPGs but did render the 110 DNGs that I had created from the JPGs. I had edited the set of 150 down to 110 by eliminating 35 images at the beginning and 5 images at the beginning that contained no needed or in focus information. I shot the highest quality JPGs for this project instead of my usual RAW. My camera is a 24MP one so the files in any format are large. So I was able to compare Picolay with Zerene with Photoshop. So for me Picolay ran easily and fast on my set of 150 JPGs. Zerene ran fast on my set of JPGs and a newly needed set of TIFs. And Ps ran incredibly slowly on DNGs, and I gave up on it still running for hours with little progress on JPGs. I can Zerene in both modes. Thus finally ending up with 5 images to compare all on one page. For me anyway the Zerene "P" mode and the Ps ones were about tied and the best looking. The Zerene "D" mode and the Picolay on the 110 set were about tied and OK looking. But the Picolay on the full 150 was awful with remnants and haze displayed. This is only one test, so I should try Picolay and Zerene on some of my older manual made stack sets of only 4 to 12 exposures. I will probably keep the free program for now, but I am likely going to buy Zerene for my main stacker for WeStacker Stacks. I still need Ps for fully processing stacked resultant image files and to convert my camera output from Pentax PEF or DNG Raw. I can batch convert a set of files to what I'll need by using my ACR app. One can use it to Save As. That was how I made TIFs from a batch of DNGs that were in like made from my in-camera JPGs. I'll as usual stay with shooting DNG or PEF Raw. I have been using Ps since 2012. It is all a learning experience. I am thinking of getting the Battery pack for my WeMacro Rack so I can shoot flowers outdoors during the Spring. Note I have to do all this sitting down due to arthritis, often in a wheelchair. 'till next post. Thanks.

jackm1943 Loc: Omaha, Nebraska

This is quite the learning experience eh? I still have brain farts with the WeMacro like when I was learning large format 25 yrs ago. Regarding the arthritis, I have the same issues, one "new" knee and the other still arthritic. I carry a large stool around to sit on. For shooting things like flowers (at 1.6X or less), I recently purchased a Canon M6 Mark II, a 32 MP APS-C camera that does focus bracketing with auto focus macro lenses. For 1.6X or less stacks, it's far, far faster and easier than using the WeMacro, and it only costs about $850.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Yes, something to think about. I may also have to consider a MILC due to my arthritic hands, plus walking and balance issues. Though, it will be an issue to change brands as I own 6 Pentax cameras and over 30 Pentax lenses! But I have no particular dislike for Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, etc.

Oh, I did not have too much trouble learning to use a few different View Cameras but I was young(er) than and that was back in 1977 -1984. I still own two 4x5" cameras, a studio Omega View and a Gundlach Wooden folding field camera. I just wish I had had the computer skills back then and when I was a science student. I've been doing Ps since 2012. Only issue with using film today is I keep forgetting Reciprocity Failure and under exposing long View Camera shots by many stops!

Thanks.