New user comments

Shooting in macro mode, techniques, tips & tricks
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johnrcrellin
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New user comments

Post by johnrcrellin »

I've started to get good results after a few days experimenting. It's all about stability really (and my D700 is pretty clunky in Live View mode - there is a shutter "delay after mirror" setting that helps with getting stable shots).

I've already got a wish list ! (Or am I missing what's already there?)

Would be really nice to be able to get a focus range report after running Helicon focus - the minimum and maximum distance actually used).
Is it not possible to run the picture taking sequence in non-Live View mode - what I mean is once you have set everything up in Live view then just use the camera normally to take the series of shots with commands from the PC ? As I say Live View mode on D700 very clunky.

But as I implied above when saying it's all about stability - of lighting and movement - deliver the right pictures to the software and it does a brilliant job !

John Crellin
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Stas Yatsenko
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Re: New user comments

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

John,

The software needs to switch LiveView to move the focus and take shots so there is nothing we can do about. Canon cameras have Mirror Lock Up mode which helps greatly in such situations but it is not available for Nikon cameras, at least remotely.

Distance - we can get information about focusing distance from the lens. But! It is very imprecise so you may get several shots with the same distance value. What we probably can do is to add focusing distance to the source image names. What do you think about that?
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johnrcrellin
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Re: New user comments

Post by johnrcrellin »

Stas Yatsenko wrote:John,

The software needs to switch LiveView to move the focus and take shots so there is nothing we can do about. Canon cameras have Mirror Lock Up mode which helps greatly in such situations but it is not available for Nikon cameras, at least remotely.

Distance - we can get information about focusing distance from the lens. But! It is very imprecise so you may get several shots with the same distance value. What we probably can do is to add focusing distance to the source image names. What do you think about that?
Thanks for the comments. Understand about the remote operation and I am fine now with the shutter delay.

I am beginning to see the problem with the focus distance info - but it would be good to have the limits - nearest and farthest - and yes in the filename would be good. I guess this is the Nikon EXIF figure which is hard to get at anyway ? It's not too bad when close with the 105mm macro but I agree in relatively coarse steps. I gather the software is just working with arbitrary focus units ?

I had a session just now where the RAW files although exposed exactly converted in Helicon focus to overexposed. No problem as I batched them to TIFF in Nikon Capture NX and ran HF again with the TIFFs. The next run was OK anyway. I guess this is down to the Adobe converter (I have downloaded the latest) and there is no way to control that ?

The perfect situation would be to rewrite NEF with the resultant picture but I guess the problems are insuperable there so in many cases where I want to make a RAW adjustment I will need to batch this in the Nikon Software I guess.

John
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Stas Yatsenko
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Re: New user comments

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

I would try DCRAW converter or embedded converter which uses Nikon libraries for raw development. DCRAW has options for highlights recovery.
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johnrcrellin
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Re: New user comments

Post by johnrcrellin »

Thanks - will try !
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