4,734 Discussions and CommentsMember since Dec. 18, 2006
Hi all,
My friend and colleague Erik (from the Aquatimer Cousteau Chrono with orange bezel) brought me a special edition of the photography magazine 'Focus' with a special about macro photography.
Probably all here who have tried some kind of Macro shots will know that the very limited Depth of Field makes it extremely hard to take nice, detailed pictures of a watch or movement.
It's a good thing that these days, CPU power doesn't cost much and there are plenty of tools to overcome the problem. Some are expensive, others even free and/or Open Source.
This evening, I had my first shot (several, literally) at this and here is the result:
Just for this time, I saved it at a higher resolution (1920x1280) and in 95% Jpeg quality instead of the usual 85%.
As you can see, the entire dial is perfectly in focus. This is because the image is built of a stack of 24 images, all aligned with a tool called "align_image_stack" that comes with the free software package called "Hugin" and then these aligned images are "enfused" with another free tool called "EnfuseGUI".
The computation time for the entire process is a bit less than ten minutes and together with taking the pictures, it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to get one image with the enhanced Depth of Field.
The result you see here was my second try, I first tried it with just 6 images of a smaller part of the dial. Once I saw the result, I shot the series of 24 images and generated the above image.
Below the first, 13th and 24th image of the series. You can clearly see the shift of the focus from left to right:
I hope you like it, in my opinion it's worth the time but it makes it hard to produce large quantities of images and a tripod and steady environment are a must.
4,734 Discussions and CommentsMember since Dec. 18, 2006
Here is a picture of my "Macro studio setup":
A semi-transparent box, a few sheets of white paper and a tripod. That's all you need. Oh yeah, besides the camera but my Canon 40D still does the job!
1,590 Discussions and CommentsMember since May 16, 2002
I have not downloaded or examined the Hugin site but I take it this only works on cameras where you can shift the focus very small amounts whether with a load of focus points or by manual focus and small adjustments. Wish I knew where my CF tripod was, still haven't found it after moving home back in 2010.
4,734 Discussions and CommentsMember since Dec. 18, 2006
The UK Greg Wrote:I have not downloaded or examined the Hugin site but I take it this only works on cameras where you can shift the focus very small amounts whether with a load of focus points or by manual focus and small adjustments. Wish I knew where my CF tripod was, still haven't found it after moving home back in 2010.
Hi Greg,
Indeed, with my setup I use manual focus and in the 'live view' I can zoom in 10 times and focus on a small part of the dial. The rather busy dial of the PPC is ideal, shifting the focus one month/day at a time.
I haven't tried if I can get equally good results with half the pictures to save time yet.
To avoid movement of the camera while taking the picture I use the "lockup mirror" function and a 2 second wait-time. This also makes that it takes plenty of time to take all the pictures.
For some of the software tools it's also very important that the lens doesn't change in lenght while adjusting the focus since this actually brings the object closer to the camera.
There is also a commercial program (forgot the name and the papers are in the office) that can work with motorized camera slide rails and it also sends all the images directly to the attached PC and does the entire process automatically.
196 Discussions and CommentsMember since Sept. 1, 2011
Australia
Great photo and great information as well, I certainly have the same problem with focus when using my macro lens, another problem that I find is lint and dust either on the watch or the background, I can't see it with my naked eye but it shows up as clear as day in my photos.
Very nice result, Clemens. Thanks for the information. Just a couple of days ago, I read about a photographer using a similar technique to get an image of a Lange Datograph movement but he didn't mention the tools he used. Time to start investigation options for MacOS.
2,241 Discussions and CommentsMember since Nov. 16, 2004
Way too complicated for me! But it works beautifully. Lovely photographs. Clemens, you will never post too many shots of that beautiful Pisa Portuguese Perpetual.
I tend to take macro shots with long exposures using a small aperture on my 100mm macro with my 5D2. Last week, in New York, I picked up a Gary Fong lightsphere which is part of the great Bill Barker's kit. Your post prompted me to take my first quick and dirty shot with the Lightsphere of my Miramar using the 5D2, 100mm macro, Speedlite 550 EX set to ETL, the camera in manual mode, 1/60sec at f22.
Thank you for prompting me to dig out the kit to take the shot but more importantly, thank you for posting those beautiful pictures of the Pisa.
My friend and colleague Erik (from the Aquatimer Cousteau Chrono with orange bezel) brought me a special edition of the photography magazine 'Focus' with a special about macro photography.
Probably all here who have tried some kind of Macro shots will know that the very limited Depth of Field makes it extremely hard to take nice, detailed pictures of a watch or movement.
It's a good thing that these days, CPU power doesn't cost much and there are plenty of tools to overcome the problem. Some are expensive, others even free and/or Open Source.
This evening, I had my first shot (several, literally) at this and here is the result:
Just for this time, I saved it at a higher resolution (1920x1280) and in 95% Jpeg quality instead of the usual 85%.
As you can see, the entire dial is perfectly in focus. This is because the image is built of a stack of 24 images, all aligned with a tool called "align_image_stack" that comes with the free software package called "Hugin" and then these aligned images are "enfused" with another free tool called "EnfuseGUI".
The computation time for the entire process is a bit less than ten minutes and together with taking the pictures, it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to get one image with the enhanced Depth of Field.
The result you see here was my second try, I first tried it with just 6 images of a smaller part of the dial. Once I saw the result, I shot the series of 24 images and generated the above image.
Below the first, 13th and 24th image of the series. You can clearly see the shift of the focus from left to right:
I hope you like it, in my opinion it's worth the time but it makes it hard to produce large quantities of images and a tripod and steady environment are a must.
This doesn't mean it has to be expensive though!
Kind regards,
Clemens
Last edited: 14 March, 2013 - 21:04
A semi-transparent box, a few sheets of white paper and a tripod. That's all you need. Oh yeah, besides the camera but my Canon 40D still does the job!
Kind regards,
Clemens
Bill
Wish I knew where my CF tripod was, still haven't found it after moving home back in 2010.
Cheers Greg Chalk
Cvanwhite at aol dot com
Hi Greg,
Indeed, with my setup I use manual focus and in the 'live view' I can zoom in 10 times and focus on a small part of the dial. The rather busy dial of the PPC is ideal, shifting the focus one month/day at a time.
I haven't tried if I can get equally good results with half the pictures to save time yet.
To avoid movement of the camera while taking the picture I use the "lockup mirror" function and a 2 second wait-time. This also makes that it takes plenty of time to take all the pictures.
For some of the software tools it's also very important that the lens doesn't change in lenght while adjusting the focus since this actually brings the object closer to the camera.
There is also a commercial program (forgot the name and the papers are in the office) that can work with motorized camera slide rails and it also sends all the images directly to the attached PC and does the entire process automatically.
Kind regards,
Clemens
Best regards,
David
I tend to take macro shots with long exposures using a small aperture on my 100mm macro with my 5D2. Last week, in New York, I picked up a Gary Fong lightsphere which is part of the great Bill Barker's kit. Your post prompted me to take my first quick and dirty shot with the Lightsphere of my Miramar using the 5D2, 100mm macro, Speedlite 550 EX set to ETL, the camera in manual mode, 1/60sec at f22.
Thank you for prompting me to dig out the kit to take the shot but more importantly, thank you for posting those beautiful pictures of the Pisa.
Last edited: 17 May, 2013 - 09:58
Kind regards,
Clemens
And bow to the Master of High Tech Photography - when reading the description of how you got that first shot. Absolutely amazing....
Thanks for sharing, and look forward to seeing that beauty again soon.
Best regards
Mark
Last edited: 16 April, 2013 - 00:36