fetzler Loc: North West PA

Focus stacking is fun.

I have a D7200 and Olympus Pen F and a Wemacro rail. The rail works very well for stacks where magnification is > 1:1. Zerene provides a chart that guides on regarding in setting the step size appropriately. I also have Helicon Remote the works well with the Nikon. This software calculates the appropriate focus motor step size. Helicon Remote works to 1:1 and maybe a bit more with a small extension tube.

My Pen F has focus bracketing which automatically adjusts the focus in rapid sequence. The in camera step sizes are 1 to 10. Does anyone know how to calculate the right step size for a given image? Everything I have seen is trial and error. The only camera input is the close focus point, the number of images and the step size.

I do not have the Helicon tube but I gather the situation is similar to the Olympus. How do you manage this?

I must say that many outside stacks are difficult due to wind motion. It is windy here.

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Any Stacks to share
If you to the Zerene blog page http://www.photomacrography.net they should be able to give you the increments for greater than 1:1 if that's what your looking for. I'm old school and would do a few test runs myself at different apertures to see if the In camera steps would work. If not you could rely on your focusing rail step increments.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-584785-1.html

This is a stack that I posted earlier using the Pen F, Macro rail and m.Zuiko 60mm macro lens.

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

Thought I posted earlier, but I don't see it.
I have the Helicon Fb tube, and the way I manage has been to do some calibrations of what step sizes work well. I don't worry about how many pictures I need to take. I just take pictures until the stack is done.
I did start early on with a couple stacks at what were the recommended step sizes for my lens and camera at a given aperture. I found the step sizes were really much smaller than needed, so I did some quick calibration stacks with larger step sizes, generally multiplying by a factor of 5. I have notes for what seemed a good step size for f/7.1 on my equipment, and if I use a wider aperture then the step size is shortened by 5x. If I go with the next smaller aperture, the step size is increased by 5x. I probably can get away with even larger step sizes, but I have not explored that.

That Pen F camera is one sweet camera. I would get one if I could afford it.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Thanks to Martin and Mark. I did see an interesting post by in the forum suggested by Martin. Mark was the author. I guess that I will have to do some experiments to see what happens at different magnifications. The trouble with the in camera focus bracketing on Olympus is that only the close focus position is defined and not the far focus point as well. The step sizes are simply labeled 1-10