Hi Allan - Thanks for that one. I have always been a bit wary of using too much slider once it begins to black out what I need it to concentrate on and keep. I can see now that I don't need to worry too much about that and that I may be losing some sharpness by being too cautious. I always thought that you never stop learning with photography, it just doubles (at least) the amount of learning you have to do when you venture into extreme macro! :)
Very clear explanation! I'm worried for the little guy who has to do all the differential calculus though. Does he ever get a break? Is he going to unionize? Looking forward to the next video!
He's actually an unpleasant little fellow - always complaining about the conditions in "the machine" and asking for more toffees. Better to just ignore him.
I had a slider installed on my Pratchett Iconograph (used exclusively for macro). It tightens the shorts of the Imp to bulge the eyes, thus giving me a macro print. Too much slider causes eye watering on the poor fellow creating blur in the print ;) Thumbs up on the video Allan
These are getting very specific.I don't use Zerene, use BenQ stuff or own a Mitutoyo objective. Just out of curiosity what happened to the inexpensive lens but great results idea? Will that be an upcoming video?
Yes, that is in the pipeline, along with about 30 other evolving projects. It is very hard to predict what will interest the most viewers and sometimes I have to go with my gut. This topic seemed like a useful concept to clear up before doing this Helicon/Zerene shootout - as control over focus stacking parameters is a key distinction. But your reminder is noted and I will move this segment up the list - I have plenty of images and some great lenses to look at. Thanks!
@@AllanWallsPhotography Hey Allan, no disrespect was intended. I know it's an absolute ton of work to even make a single video. Filming, editing, scripting, and so on. I couldn't do it. I was looking forward to the weird lens video that's all.
@@teleking58 None taken, Robbie - I hate how some projects get bulldozed to the side by the ever shifting priorities, but when the project includes work from contributors, that is especially bothersome. So I took it as a well meaning nudge and I really appreciate you saying something!
Excellent description of Dmap. I have to this point tried to not cover part of the subject but will be better in the future. Thanks. Do you keep smoothing radius at 50% of estimation radius or do you change it. What do you look for in the image to make this determination if you do change it?
I do keep the SR at half the ER almost all the time. The only time I might let it stay above 50% is when the ER goes below 10 but when there is any wandering of my subject (laterally). This comes up when using optics like Mitutoyo objectives, where your images may be razor sharp, prompting a very low ER but you still need to compensate for a mm of lateral drift. The IQ difference is tiny but I find leaving the SR a little higher than 50% helps (I did a stack at ER8/SR6 just last night). Experiment with it and see if it helps!
Timely, as your slabbing video has me stacking more than ever. Had an odd case lately - two of the 17 slabs generated a 20% larger shadow image behind the expected image. Going through all 172 tiffs sent to Zerene from Lightroom, none of them were larger than the rest. I repeated with the same result after changing number of images per slab. It appeared to be an aligning issue. Curious, have you seen anything like this before? Running Zerene V1.04, Build T2021-08-28-1410 Prosumer Edition. Greatly enjoyed the video.
Very interesting, Hank. I have all kinds of weird show up and in virtually every case it is something I did. I am bad about accidentally including test shots from the front of a stack, and have even included the first few frames from the following image. Every now and again I will get something like what you are describing when I am shooting a small subject with plenty of negative space and there is a sudden dramatic shift in the specimen, that I somehow missed. When the subject drifts slowly you get the vertical and lateral drift lines, but when the shift is between two frames towards the end of the stack, I end up with a apricot of subjects one superimposed on the other and overlapping. On one occasion it looked like my wasp's head had suddenly been inflated. There is one other possibility, that I have seen in the last few weeks, but it is unusual. I had a fresh specimen that I had caught that day, but that had been sitting in my car for an hour before arriving at the alcohol bath. While I was photographing this guy (a weevil), he started to expand, filling up with gas from rapid and advanced putrefaction of the abdominal contents. The weevil almost double in girth before springing a leak and deflating to sub normal size. The images were a complete mess but you could make out the outlines of what looked like two subjects. I don't know if either of these sound possible but I cannot think of anyway in which ZS could do that without my input. I know your comment was a while ago, did you find out anything?
Hi Allan, thanks for taking the time to respond. In reviewing the 172 tiffs again, I found one that was aligned with the others, but just a bit darker exposure. I removed it, and the slabs came out perfectly. Just added another step to my workflow to guard against that.
@@hanklevesque426 There's another one that gets me every now and again - sometimes when I import from a different camera, the order get rearranged and I don't know it. Always good to check the file numbers are in order as well as the LR numbers. Make for some bizarre stacks!
Thanks for this great clarification Allan.
Education and humour; superb stuff, thankyou.
Excellent explanation! Great content (as usual)!
Hi Allan - Thanks for that one. I have always been a bit wary of using too much slider once it begins to black out what I need it to concentrate on and keep. I can see now that I don't need to worry too much about that and that I may be losing some sharpness by being too cautious. I always thought that you never stop learning with photography, it just doubles (at least) the amount of learning you have to do when you venture into extreme macro! :)
Never a truer word! A lot to keep track of here.
Very clear explanation! I'm worried for the little guy who has to do all the differential calculus though. Does he ever get a break? Is he going to unionize? Looking forward to the next video!
He's actually an unpleasant little fellow - always complaining about the conditions in "the machine" and asking for more toffees. Better to just ignore him.
I had a slider installed on my Pratchett Iconograph (used exclusively for macro). It tightens the shorts of the Imp to bulge the eyes, thus giving me a macro print. Too much slider causes eye watering on the poor fellow creating blur in the print ;) Thumbs up on the video Allan
Hahaha - now that is a DEEP cut. I don't think Terry would have taken any of this very seriously!
These are getting very specific.I don't use Zerene, use BenQ stuff or own a Mitutoyo objective. Just out of curiosity what happened to the inexpensive lens but great results idea? Will that be an upcoming video?
Yes, that is in the pipeline, along with about 30 other evolving projects. It is very hard to predict what will interest the most viewers and sometimes I have to go with my gut. This topic seemed like a useful concept to clear up before doing this Helicon/Zerene shootout - as control over focus stacking parameters is a key distinction. But your reminder is noted and I will move this segment up the list - I have plenty of images and some great lenses to look at. Thanks!
@@AllanWallsPhotography Hey Allan, no disrespect was intended. I know it's an absolute ton of work to even make a single video. Filming, editing, scripting, and so on. I couldn't do it. I was looking forward to the weird lens video that's all.
Besides, you know I'm cheeky.
@@teleking58 None taken, Robbie - I hate how some projects get bulldozed to the side by the ever shifting priorities, but when the project includes work from contributors, that is especially bothersome. So I took it as a well meaning nudge and I really appreciate you saying something!
@@AllanWallsPhotography Ah, ya smooth talker
Excellent description of Dmap. I have to this point tried to not cover part of the subject but will be better in the future. Thanks.
Do you keep smoothing radius at 50% of estimation radius or do you change it. What do you look for in the image to make this determination if you do change it?
I do keep the SR at half the ER almost all the time. The only time I might let it stay above 50% is when the ER goes below 10 but when there is any wandering of my subject (laterally). This comes up when using optics like Mitutoyo objectives, where your images may be razor sharp, prompting a very low ER but you still need to compensate for a mm of lateral drift. The IQ difference is tiny but I find leaving the SR a little higher than 50% helps (I did a stack at ER8/SR6 just last night). Experiment with it and see if it helps!
Timely, as your slabbing video has me stacking more than ever. Had an odd case lately - two of the 17 slabs generated a 20% larger shadow image behind the expected image. Going through all 172 tiffs sent to Zerene from Lightroom, none of them were larger than the rest. I repeated with the same result after changing number of images per slab. It appeared to be an aligning issue. Curious, have you seen anything like this before? Running Zerene V1.04, Build T2021-08-28-1410 Prosumer Edition. Greatly enjoyed the video.
Very interesting, Hank. I have all kinds of weird show up and in virtually every case it is something I did. I am bad about accidentally including test shots from the front of a stack, and have even included the first few frames from the following image. Every now and again I will get something like what you are describing when I am shooting a small subject with plenty of negative space and there is a sudden dramatic shift in the specimen, that I somehow missed. When the subject drifts slowly you get the vertical and lateral drift lines, but when the shift is between two frames towards the end of the stack, I end up with a apricot of subjects one superimposed on the other and overlapping. On one occasion it looked like my wasp's head had suddenly been inflated. There is one other possibility, that I have seen in the last few weeks, but it is unusual. I had a fresh specimen that I had caught that day, but that had been sitting in my car for an hour before arriving at the alcohol bath. While I was photographing this guy (a weevil), he started to expand, filling up with gas from rapid and advanced putrefaction of the abdominal contents. The weevil almost double in girth before springing a leak and deflating to sub normal size. The images were a complete mess but you could make out the outlines of what looked like two subjects. I don't know if either of these sound possible but I cannot think of anyway in which ZS could do that without my input. I know your comment was a while ago, did you find out anything?
Hi Allan, thanks for taking the time to respond. In reviewing the 172 tiffs again, I found one that was aligned with the others, but just a bit darker exposure. I removed it, and the slabs came out perfectly. Just added another step to my workflow to guard against that.
@@hanklevesque426 There's another one that gets me every now and again - sometimes when I import from a different camera, the order get rearranged and I don't know it. Always good to check the file numbers are in order as well as the LR numbers. Make for some bizarre stacks!
Just one word to say: WAUW!