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Did i ask too much?

Posted: 08.03.2015 15:39
by orac
I think I have asked a little too much this time but would like some thoughts on the situation

I was out for a walk the other day when I came across this skeletonised seed pod blew into my path, so I picked it up wondered home.

232 shots, nikkor AF-S 40 2.8G @ f3.5, 1/320s ISO 100, Nikon D7100. overall distance was 18mm taken 0.07783mm apart on a home built macro rail, overlap was 30% (calculated DOF was 0.1112mm)

I thought it would be a challenge due to its transparent spherical shape. Helico says there was 20% change in light, I was using a ring light and the ambient light did not change at all so I think that may have something to do with the light reflected from the object

I will try and get around to converting the images from nef to jpeg in next day or so and see if that makes any difference.

Thanks for any input.

Re: Did i ask too much?

Posted: 10.03.2015 15:17
by Stas Yatsenko
I would try method C here.
We need to test your files. Can you please upload them to our ftp server as described at http://www.heliconsoft.com/ftp-server/

Re: Did i ask too much?

Posted: 11.03.2015 13:46
by orac
I did have a closer look at the images myself and found that the images of the front where not very sharp for some reason. I re-ran the stack for a better result but still not perfect (270 over 18mm this time), I may have need to add an extra 1mm of depth to the shot

I will upload the images for this stack, unfortunately the item has disappeared some where (not sure how as I haven't been in the room for a couple of days so I wont be able to re-shoot unless I can find where ever it has gone.

this was stacked with method c

Edit: Good news, I found the seed pod, downside uploading the current Jpegs is going to take a while - 1.47GB on my slow countryside connection is currently indicating 9 hours.

Re: Did i ask too much?

Posted: 12.03.2015 14:39
by Stas Yatsenko
Thanks for the samples. It looks like method C is the best option for this stack. I would experiment with smaller and larger aperture. There is a chance that different background blurring will give better final result.

Re: Did i ask too much?

Posted: 12.03.2015 18:57
by orac
OK I will have a look when I get some more time, in the mean while I ran the stack with a lot more depth last night (26mm in total giving 336 shots), still at F3.5. It does seem better this time around. even though the subject was lit using a ring light mounted to the lens I still got variation in brightness warning and the light in the room did not change

the background was around 15cm behind the object - don't really know if the black card is the best background but that can be experimented with at some point too. maybe a diffuser over the ring light may help a too.

Re: Did i ask too much?

Posted: 16.03.2015 12:18
by Stas Yatsenko
I think the difficult part of this image is out of focus details. When you change the aperture, blurring will be stronger or weaker. I am not able to predict which one would give better results but it is certainly worth a try.