Helicon Remote and Nikon D3

[Stefan_R]

Dear Stas,

I need your help.

Please take a look at the attached picture. Both are results of Helicon Focus.

When working with Helicon Remote (Mac version, Nikon D3), I activate the autofocus on the camera, and then I mark the nearest and the farthest points (A and B). I lock both positions. Camera focus works fine with Helicon remote when I hit the "<" and ">" buttons.

When I then start taking the pictures, it seems that everything is fine at the beginning, but then (after about 3 pictures) the lens focus goes back to the beginning, it does not move to the point that I had saved as "B". "Auto" next to the DOF button is activated, all values are set to standard.

The same happens when I use the latest Windows versions of Helicon.

What do I do wrong? Both stacks consist of 13 pictures.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Regards

Stefan

[Stas Yatsenko]

I would appreciate if you send us log file (Helicon Remote menu \ Help \ Report a bug).

This will give us more info.

[KHG]

Dear Stas,

I need your help.

Please take a look at the attached picture. Both are results of Helicon Focus.

When working with Helicon Remote (Mac version, Nikon D3), I activate the autofocus on the camera, and then I mark the nearest and the farthest points (A and B). I lock both positions. Camera focus works fine with Helicon remote when I hit the "<" and ">" buttons.

When I then start taking the pictures, it seems that everything is fine at the beginning, but then (after about 3 pictures) the lens focus goes back to the beginning, it does not move to the point that I had saved as "B". "Auto" next to the DOF button is activated, all values are set to standard.

The same happens when I use the latest Windows versions of Helicon.

What do I do wrong? Both stacks consist of 13 pictures.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Regards

Stefan

Hi Stefan,

I had the same problem with the same camera (using 105mm Macro lens), there are two things that I think compounded the problem...
Firstly I didn't always return the focus to the nearest point (when the setting was 'to infinity') before starting the stack - i.e. User error!
The second was the size of the step in Preferences> Nikon. I have it set to 15, it seemed to work with larger steps, but anything smaller and the focus point 'stuck' during capture.

It might help...

Regards,

Kevin.

[Stas Yatsenko]

It is not required that you manually move focus to the starting point before shooting stack, Remote will do that for you. At least, it should, when there are no errors. It is by no means a user error to not to step back manually.
As for the step size in the settings - that is actually a useful setting worth experimenting with when you have problems with moving focus. It all depends on your lens. 15 works fine for most lenses, but not for all. For some lenses that's too small an increment to perform.
After increasing step size setting, do you still have to move back to starting point manually for Remote to work correctly? If yes - please send us another bug report (with a short comment so that we know what to look at).