Though my license is not current, I owned Helicon Focus not long ago and successfully used it with a macro focusing rail to create some pretty spectacular macro shots.
The new development of Helicon Remote interests me mostly for the speed and automation. Insects don't often wait around for my method. But I'm wondering about the optics. But moving the camera a millimeter or so at a time, the focusing rail method retains the same relationship between the in-focus part of the subject, the lens, and the film plane for every shot in the stack. The method utilized by Helicon Remote does not, since the lens is moved relative to the film plane for each shot. What are the differences in results between these two methods and the pros and cons of each? Is one of them easier to process for Helicon Focus than the other, or does one method produce a more perfect final image?
As you know, Helicon Remote can control automated macrorails (StackShot) or change focusing distance with the camera lens. Rails give higher precision, control over lens is simpler and more universal. Ideally, as Charles Krebs has written, the entrance pupil of the lens should not move (see http://www.heliconsoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1141)
The program alignes images and scales them accordingly, so magnification changes is not a problem. But when the camera is moving, relative position of objects in the scene changes and this may add artifacts to final image. If the movement of the camera is relatively small compared to focusing distance, you will not see any differences between two methods you mentioned.
