Helicon Soft Forum

Hello,

I have been trying Helicon Remote for the past days, using a tethered Sony A7RIV. My first question is about an error which is recurring at seamingly random times. Within a stack capturing process, the process abruptly stops, and a warning message, "A critical error has occured [...]" is briefly displayed before the programm shuts down completely. And that's recurring almost every stack capture. What should I do ?

Now on an unrelated topic, my goal is to combine photogrammetry with focus stacking, as I have seen some people discuss on this forum. The best solution I have come up with is using a python script triggering Helicon Remote and a turning table alternatively. The process, however, is very long : almost 10 seconds between each capture adds up a lot when you need 120 points of view on an object. What parameters of the workflow could influence the delay between each shots ?

Thanks,
Hugo

Hello Hugo,

1. When the error occurs again, please restart Helicon Focus and send a bug report (menu - Help - Contact support).

2. Send the bug report from Helicon Remote after shooting a stack (menu - Help - Report a bug) and we'll see why it's taking so long and what can be optimized. 5 seconds between shots should be possible.

Thank you Catherine. I'll have sent a report bug for the "critical error" one.

In the meantime I have used the same setup, but using another, worse camera -Canon 250D-, and shot 50 stacks without an issue, so it does seem to be A7RIV related. I know it's not listed as a supported camera but I have read people use it, and it works fine besides theses bugs.

On an other note, I looked for an information I couldn't find on the forum, what macro lenses do you typically recommend ?

For instance, while I know focus breathing is compensated for by HF, since I am using the stacked pictures in a photogrammetry software -agisoft metashape in this case-, I want this breathing to be as low as possible for the pictures to be as accurate towards a natural focal length and magnification as possible, thus permitting better calculations by the photogrammetry algorithms. Also, I was wondering if certain types of lens AF motorisation were more accurate or recommended than other (USM, STM for instance).

Thanks again

1. Which e-mail did you specify when submitting the bug report form? We don't see any reports that look like they might be from you.

2. I can recommend anything regarding the lenses, that's not our area of expertise. Sorry. Hopefully, someone more knowledgeable will read your question and give some advice, or you could ask on photography forums.

OK, thanks. I used our company e-mail, which is [email protected]. If needed i can probably reproduce the error and resend it.

Thank you! We have studied your report, it was very useful, and we think that we've fixed the problem. A reply was sent to the same e-mail with a link to the new version of Helicon Remote.