[JJ_SO]

There are difficulties I have to deal with in a focus stack. Focus breathing (with a need to refocus after changing FL or aperture or both) can't be one of them, as far as I understood the term. It happens, when


Focal length gets changed between two shots

Aperture gets changed between two shots (which is why that I can't use during a HDR series)


These things I don't do. Aperture remains untouched (but will change as f-number in close-up range) and I never tried to use a zoom for focusstacks.

In all stacks i need to eliminate differences in lighting, exposure and movement within the focal pane and from picture to picture. A leaf in the wind will cause massive problems, but the blurred shadow of that leaf on my main object would not be a problem or at least I could retouch it within the stack in PP.


However, the proportions of back- and foreground do change constantly, so any piece of software has to be able to scale the pictures in the stack. Nervous bokeh also causes problems in PP. High gloss surfaces show reflections which also can become a nightmare to deal with.


All very good reasons to ask for more control in PP. i"m very curious if and how Arsenal (*) will deal with it. They claim to be able to do the stacking of RAWs and sabe the result (and not the used single pictures) as RAW back to the card.


But my reasoning is: if Helicon focus does the trick in a mostly smooth set of images and CPU and buffer RAM of thenD850 are fast and big enough, I don't see problems too big to be solved for in-camera processing. Olympus and Pentax can do a resolution increase in camera by moving the sensor and calculating the 4 singke shots to a big one.


(*) there's a thread in the forum about that, but on an iPad it's a nightmare to need some extented functions, like smileys, formatting or hyperlinks

[Studor13]

I seriously doubt that Nikon is so stupid to introduce a focus stacking feature and at the same time leaving the shooter to have to deal with focus breathing.


The amount of "breathing" is noticeable going from infinity to MFD but no fool is going to stack a series of images like this.


Another example of fake news trying to shoot down (pardon the pun) the D850.

[mst]

Focus breathing (read 'change of focal length') is a common 'feature' of most IF macro lenses near MFD. That definitely includes the AF-S 105 VR, which changes the FOV visibly when refocusing near 1:1.

However, most software solutions (like Helicon) can detect it and adjust the single frames accordingly.

[Brightcolours]

Focus breathing is a common feature in all non-IF lenses also, courtesy of the distance from the focal point to the sensor. Focus breathing is not equivalent to "change of focal length". In order to eliminate focus breathing, one will have to change the focal length.

 

So, if you move the whole camera for focus stacking, you have an issue because the perspective (view point) changes. But you have no focus breathing. If you keep the camera at the same spot but you move the lens, you have a FOV change due to "focus breathing". In theory, one can design an IF lens which has no focus breathing at close up distances. But I do not know of any information of such macro lenses being available?

 

So yes, just shooting a bunch of images and combine them into RAW at the sensor resolution is not doable.

 

The focus breathing at close up distances is easily seen/checked through the view finder or on the LCD in live view, so do not treat it as something elusive. This tutorial video of the focus stacking features of Magic Lantern shows it clearly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcRVXuc6Yt4

 

You will always need to align the images, and crop the result.

[Studor13]

 

You will always need to align the images, and crop the result.

 

Well, where did Nikon say that everything is done automatically for you?

 

“ This feature lets the user automatically shoot up to 300 shots at adjustable focus step intervals to infinity which can be easily assembled into a focus-stacked image using third party software.”

 

It seems to me that some people are trying their best to find faults in the D850 even if they don't exist. 

[Brightcolours]

Well, where did Nikon say that everything is done automatically for you?

 

“ This feature lets the user automatically shoot up to 300 shots at adjustable focus step intervals to infinity which can be easily assembled into a focus-stacked image using third party software.”

 

It seems to me that some people are trying their best to find faults in the D850 even if they don't exist. 

It seems to me that you need to start reading the threads before misinterpreting and/or misrepresenting my posts. 

[Studor13]

I read well. I am particularly good at reading between the lines.


This is what I know.


You can't cope with Nikon coming out with a killer camera and have to circumvent some non-sense about focus breathing.


Focus breathing this, focus breathing that.


Really, is that the only thing that you can come up with?


No, let me guess. Oh, that 4K video and crappy AF in Liveview bla bla bla.


The D850 hasn't even hit the stores but all the haters already know everything that is wrong with it. Right?

[mst]

Can we stop these personal attacks, please?

The discussion was about why Nikon did NOT add automatic stacking in the D850, and BC made a very valid point about focus breathing.

[Studor13]

Sure.


But if someone tells me I should start reading and then end it with some pissy wink then they are going to get it back with interest.


BTW, I don't agree with BC about focus breathing or anything else.


As to why Nikon didn't add auto stacking it's because it's better to first do it in LR and then in PS although I imagine it will be a feature in LR in the future.

[JJ_SO]

Can we stop these personal attacks, please?The discussion was about why Nikon did NOT add automatic stacking in the D850, and BC made a very valid point about focus breathing.

Well, if someone who is not even remotely interested in buying this camera or any existing Nikon just want desperately find something which might go not as smooth as whoever thinks it should be, who endlessly blurbs around DR and which maximum DR is enough, never shows a picture to underline what he's complaining about, never shows some focus stacks of his own because otherwise he knew that software is around which does alingments and crops, acting like a berserk when it comes to criticise other opinions - then he occassionally gets back what he's asking for very loudly.


With a macro lens there's no need to be afraid of focus breathing by making a stack of pictures with a limited range of focus-distance. Occassionally, the buyers will have to face other issues given the history of lately announced or delivered cameras. Which is bad enough. No need to open up artificial fields of hypertheoretical problems.


Also, talking about ISO noise of a camera which currently hasn't made it to the shelves and is not available with it's final firmware is just talking about next week's weather before it happend. I'm not a fan of personal attacks, but I make exceptions if one constantly uses the same patterns of hypercriticism when it comes to other brands than his personal choice. The discussion about DR says a lot about that.