Ian,

The program handles the "magnification" changes fine. But that's not the big problem. If the lens entrance pupil moves at all when focus is changed while shooting such a stack (near to far landscape, wide angle lens), then objects (especially those very near the lens, and toward the edges of ...

Taken with Nikon D300, 80/4 Componon-S reverse mounted on bellows.

One of the most outrageously iridescent "jewel beetles".
Nikon SMZ-800 stereoscope and the Canon 5D camera.

These were taken with a 10X objective using oblique brightfield illumination.
These would move slowly, but occasionally they would all remain still enough to quickly take a stack of images.

Dan,

Yes, naturally there was some touch-up required because of the problem you mention. But not nearly as much as I had feared would be the case.

As far as equipment is concerned the most difficult part is getting a wide-angle lens that will allow smooth and continuous focus from over 1:1 out ...

Dan,
I can see there is kind of aberration on the images? I think they can be improved by shifting blue channel up and red channel down. What is the reason for this aberration?
Not really. These were done with DIC (Differential Interference Contrast) illumination. When used "normally" with a ...

THe upper image (Cymbella) is from a 6 image stack. The lower image (Stauroneis) is from a 7 image stack.

Olympus BHS microscope with DIC illumnation. Canon 350D camera. Diatoms mounted in Zrax.

lluminated with a mix of darkfield (for the legs primarily) and surface illumination via fiber optic light guides.

Olympus BHS microscope, Olympus 4X S Plan Apo objective, Canon 350D. 23 image Z-stack.

The fossil skeletons of radiolarians are very three dimensional, making them a tough subject to photograph with a microscope. Stacking with Helicon Focus allows for some nice looks at these structures.

Canon 350D above an Olympus BHS microscope. Olympus 20X S Plan Apo objective with DIC ...

This is from a stack of 19 images. It was taken at 20X (magnification on sensor) using a Canon 40D camera and a Nikon 20/0.40 CF M Plan microscope objective... both mounted onto a Nikon bellows.

Here are a couple of "macro/landscapes" made using Helicon Focus. These are from the Quinault Rain Forest in Washington State. The light was very "flat" this day (I would have preferred a brighter overcast), but it was extremely calm which is absolutely essential. You really can't have things blown ...

Sorex,
It belongs to the family Daphniidae.
So I think it can be referred to as a daphnia. If not... what is it?

Gene,

The resulting image file has the same pixel dimensions as each of source images. For my microscope shots this is 3456x2304 pixels (Canon 350D), for my "macro" shots it is 3872x2592 (Nikon D200). I usually save everything as "tif" files to avoid any compression artifacts. Then, if they are to ...

J.D.,

The 24-105L is a very good lens, but not really a great choice for this kind of magnification. Since you already have extension tubes, a better (but relatively inexpensive) choice would be a reverse mounted enlarging lens or 50mm normal lens (f1.8 or slower). You will also need a way to ...

These are images of fairly small centipedes that were found in moss samples. In both cases looking at the ventral side.

The upper image was taken with an Olympus 4/0.16 S Plan Apo, using darkfield illumination. The stack consisted of 19 images.

The lower image gives a good look at one of the ...