Blur / Bokeh Stacking : defocus mode

[D600vince]

Hi,

What if Helicon remote could shot a defocussed stacks ? To expand the bokeh

Sometimes we may want a nice, natural, blurred background (or foreground). Let's say for example a standing person. Even with very wide aperture lenses, we get a too sharp background.
Or in my case I love wide angle photography with shallow dof (yes I'm paradoxical).

Sony has a crude solution for that problem (mostly targeted to compact cameras) : Background defocus mode

http://www.sony-asia.com/microsite/cybe ... 09/09.html

Basically the camera takes a focussed shot, and a front focussed one. Then it merges the too.

Of course Sony does a crude job with many artifacts, I'm sure helicon's expirnce could yels a much better job. Of course Helicon remote would do as many shots as needed to have a smooth natural results.

[Stas Yatsenko]

Thanks, that is very interesting idea! I afraid you cannot fully automate this and you will probably need to use retouching brush for perfect results. Can you please experiment with Helicon Montage program which comes with Helicon Filter? You can use it to transfer foreground object on the defocused background. If we add automatic selection of foreground object, this might be what you are looking for.

[D600vince]

Hi Stas,

unfortunately I can't I'm a Mac user, helicon filter seems to be PC only

[Stas Yatsenko]

I think there is no sense to shot unfocused image with the camera, you can get exactly the same effect with software. Photoshop has Lens blur effect which will give you the same or better results.

[D600vince]

On the contrary, I think the real out of focus from the camera is far better than Photoshop's because, the bokeh depends on the depth, so farther objects are more out of focus. Once the image is flat, depth information is lost. Yes with very complex masking you can achieve something like this, but it's difficult and lengthy.

Moreover, PS blur smooth out image noise, so it appears odd. Of course you can add noise, but that's one more steps and it's difficult to match the noise of the sharp areas. Yes as we're on tripod, we tedn to have the less noise possible but there's always some.

The idea was to have something that's something closer to the real thing, and use the informations that the first picture is the sharp one, and the other(s) are the blurry one to automatically do a good smooth merge between the pictures witout compex masking. Maybe a touch up here and there, but I thought Helicons could use it's science and perhaps more image to have a much better results than sony's.

[Stas Yatsenko]

Yes, I see the point. We will need to make some research and test to see if we can find a good solution here.