Stacking anomoly

Shooting in macro mode, techniques, tips & tricks
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Earlyman1953
Posts: 10
Joined: 15.07.2018 16:24

Stacking anomoly

Post by Earlyman1953 »

Hi-
Please look at the attached image. It is a stack of 75 images using the "C" rendering method. (It gave the best results of the three methods). Notice the hairs at the top of the head in between the eyes. Why are they blurred? The individual images show all of the hairs to be in focus. I tried two stacks, one with 75 images and another with 150 images, both with the same results. Does the magnification have anything to do with it? This image was shot at 3X. I shot this same insect at 1X and the were not out of focus areas.
Canon 5D II with MP-E 65m
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2018-07-15 10-35-45 (C).jpg
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Stas Yatsenko
Posts: 3841
Joined: 06.05.2009 14:05
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Re: Stacking anomoly

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

Please upload your stack to our server as described at http://www.heliconsoft.com/ftp-server/
If you are user of GoogleDrive, DropBox, OneDrive or other cloud service, you can upload your files there and send us a link.
Falk Lumo
Posts: 7
Joined: 23.05.2013 18:08

Re: Stacking anomoly

Post by Falk Lumo »

Hi, there are several such threads here in the forum, regarding stacking imperfections.

As they are quite common depending on the circumstances, it would be very helpful if we could learn from these case studies.

However, you ask to upload the example to your server and then never report back about your findings. I find this rather frustrating.

In particular, I‘d like to learn if increasing #images in a stack is a safe method to increase quality?
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Stas Yatsenko
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Joined: 06.05.2009 14:05
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Re: Stacking anomoly

Post by Stas Yatsenko »

We try to comment on user stacks but we just do not get them sometimes. There are several reasons for bad results, some of them could be fixed, some not. For example, some artifacts are caused by misalignment of source images. Enabling rotation or chaning other alignment params could help. There are also some optical effects, when blurred foreground objects mask background details. The program does not have enough data to compile perfect result in this case.

As to your question, more does not mean better. Focused areas in source images should overlap so that the program has enough information. But there is not sense to make more source images than that. We recommend to use the smallest aperture which provides good resolution (usually F8-F11) and find optimal focusing step using method described here (https://www.heliconsoft.com/helicon-fb-tube-setting-step/)
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