Helicon Soft Forum

Hello
Firstly, I would like to thank you for the software that saved me a lot of time while working with photography of small items.
I have been using a Canon camera with a 100, 2.8 macro lens for a long time, but for several reasons I have been forced to change my equipment to Nikon.
I am currently using the D7100 with a 105, 2.8 macro lens and a lot of problems appeared. I already know that I cannot preview the exposure simulation, which is a big surprise for me. Additional problems include displaying live view in very poor quality. In Canon's cameras I could count dust particles on small rings, while in Nikon I cannot determine where precisely the focus is on the object. Everything seems to be blurred and pixelated. Is there any way to improve the image quality? Another problem is working with continuous light. I use Quantuum 150D lamps that worked perfectly with Canon. When working with the D7100, I can see the image flickering on the preview. After a few moments, it is tormenting your eyes. It helps to enable the live view noise averaging strong option or to activate the lv movie mode. With lv movie on the same options flickering is gone and you can work comfortably. Is it safe to use movie mode with focus stacking photography?
I work mainly in the photography of jewelery and Helicon Remote and Helicon Focus worked very well.
After changing the equipment to the Nikon it turned out to be that comfortable working on Helicon Remote and Live View may not be possible. If you can help solve these problems, I will be very grateful.

Regards
Thomas

Unfortunately, what you're experiencing is normal operation of the Nikon cameras, it's not a software error on our part. The new generation top-tier Nikon cameras finally have exposure simulation (D800/D850, D4/D5), but not D7100 or the likes. And terrible live view quality is exactly the same even on newest cameras. There's pretty much no way of improving it, at least none that I can think of, short of some form of temporal smoothing (which is exactly what live view averaging does).

Live view flickering sounds like stroboscopic effect, whether it manifests or not will depend on the refresh rate of the image sensor and the image processing algorithms of the camera body. The root cause is that your light is flickering, and when combined with inherent "flickering" of the image sensor it may result in all kinds of weird effects, from entirely black live view image to dark or white bands on the image. It is not ideal having a light that flickers when doing photography.

There's no reason not to shoot in movie mode if it works for you, but note that some functions may not work in this mode, some exposure settings may not be available, strobes may not fire and so on.

Thank you for your help.
Well, because I did not have much time, I made the last session on Canon cameras.
I will give Nikon a chance, maybe I will find a way to work comfortably.

Regards
T