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Rogerdodge wrote:Paul
I think you fix the focus, and move the camera.
I am also not having geat success so far.
Cheers

?? Moving the camera will also change the size of the subject between frames won't it? Or am I being think again.

Bill

?? Moving the camera will also change the size of the subject between frames won't it?

It ought to maintain the relative sizes of "in focus" parts?
At least that is my guess - but what do I know?
(Not a lot actually)

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone as it is far easier to focus stack a stationary object like a fungal fruiting body than it is to stack a subject which is moving either under its own steam or being wind blown (or both). But I'll post anyway...

40D, Sigma 150, 1/13th f2.8 ISO200. I set the camera in manual mode so as to get consistent exposure across frames. Tripod mount the camera and adjust focus from close to far by just a tiny amount between each frame (anyone else remember the Fast Show Wallace and Gromit sketch?) Google nick park fast show and you'll find it

So then open them in Helicon Focus and that stacks them for you straight from RAW. Save the output which went into my normal editing tools for crop/saturation/noise removal.

Bill

1. 2. 3. 4. Final

Roger Gibbons wrote:I have just noticed Guy’s comment on the argus tibia spine. I had been puzzled by the spine question until recently, given that there are two or possibly three spines that looked like obvious candidates but were in fact red herrings. Now I know where the “real” spine is i.e. the one that differentiates argus from idas, I have tried this year to get a clear photograph of it. But the problem is that, in nature, the argus foreleg is always straight (at least in my experience) and the spine is virtually invisible, laying parallel to the leg. The only way to get a decent photo appears to be to capture an individual and bend the leg joint, and I am certainly not prepared to do that.

I received an email from Olli Vesikko with this photo of the spine shown here
http://hyonteiset.net/foorumi/viewtopic ... &hilit=oka
This is the only photo of the tibia spine I have seen.

Excellent - thanks for that, Roger!

In fact, the photo recently posted of ants attending a male silver-studded blue does show the spine too, and if you remember, I found it also on a photo of moine of argyrognomon, which shares this feature. I was hoping the spine on argus might be bigger, but no, it's not!

Sorry to hijack this post a bit, but it has been useful!

Guy

Some cameras are now offering in-built High Dynamic Range (HDR). My Panasonic FZ38 does so, but the results are not ideal. The ISO is fixed at 400 and the resulting images are not only have noticeable noise but lack the crisp definition that the FZ38 produces in other modes. But undoubtedly technology will move on. The relatively new Canon Powershot G12 being a later introduction ought to produce better HDR. Nevertheless, the reviews suggest there is still a long way to go.

I don’t know how in-camera HDR works, but presumably multiply shots at different exposures are somehow combined in the camera replicating the tried-and-tested post processing methods.

Now if this in-camera software can combine different exposures into one final image, surely a similar technique could combine several exposures at different focal points to produce extreme depth of field.

Extreme depth of field has already been achieved with the Frazier lens:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frazier_lens
I have been trying to find out more as obviously this type of equipment but it is hardly practicable for even the most dedicated of amateurs..

The most ordinary of cameras today have features that would have seemed outrageously impossible 20 years ago. I wonder what will be included in 20 years time.

Jack