Stack Shot focusing- newbie question

Optical microscopes + digital photography
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Donald H
Posts: 1
Joined: 25.05.2022 15:32

Stack Shot focusing- newbie question

Post by Donald H »

Hi- Please go easy on me if I don't have the terms, etc correct as I an new at this.

I am using Stack Shot with Helicon Remote to take macro photos. I have no problem with the A and B point and taking all the shots properly with regular macro. However, I also use a microscope objective to take extreme macro shots, and Helicon is not setting the first step correctly.

Using the microscope objective, I will set A and B, and for the sake of simplicity, let's say I want to take 10 shots. What happens when I click Start Shooting is that Stack Shot (with Helicon Remote in control) goes to A, then moves about 1/4 the way down, then starts taking the 10 shots. The DOF is really small.

Normal: shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|

What I get: ---move----------------shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|shot|move|

This makes it difficult to take the shots!!!

I have File/Preferences/StackShot /Size of focusing steps set to 1 microstep, although I get the same result at all the microsteps I try.

I hope I have explained this well enough.

Any suggestions???
jiondene537
Posts: 1
Joined: 16.07.2022 03:42

Re: Stack Shot focusing- newbie question

Post by jiondene537 »

Pretty cool, though I need some help understanding something.

What's the advantage of this over shutting down the aperture and getting a wider depth of field?

I could imagine this would be helpful with an image where the background needs to remain completely out of focus, which you'd only get with a narrow depth of field, but in the example he uses in the video it seems like it'd be easier to just take one shot at f/22 instead of a series at f/2.8 and then stack.
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Catherine
Posts: 1157
Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Stack Shot focusing- newbie question

Post by Catherine »

The video is just to show the workflow and we used a shooting subject that we could find. One apparent advantage of opening the aperture is to let more light in, shooting at F/22 could be unfeasible in some cases. But generally, focus stacking is done when you need depth of field so deep that it's not achievable with a single shot at any aperture.
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