My first "focus-stack" using CombineZM...

[lextalionis]

Hey gang,

Very first time doing a focus-stack with CombineZM. Shot 3 images and then selected "Macro" => "Do Stack". and the final is at the bottom:









I used a tripod with a Giottos ball-head with pano-guide lines so the offset was most likely very minimal. Shot with a Canon 100mm 2.8 macro in RAW, post-processed each image in Bibble, then loaded the jpg images in CombineZM and let it auto-stack. I need to spend some time in the CombineZM groups to understand how to get better results. If it's too difficult using a tripod, then I'm sure it will be a lot harder with hand-held shots.

Roy

[CaptainTom]

It looks like it did what it is supposed to do.
I am not clear on the usefulness of this program.
Perhaps you can explain what you intend to use it for.

[lextalionis]

I would only utilize this program to create a larger DOF in Macro Photography. Here, this link explains it very clearly:

http://www.wonderfulphotos.com/artic...ocus_stacking/

Roy

[SaundraU]

Very nice, only thing I can see is on the back piece there is a halo around the head, a little on the very top of the brown haired figure, and a little to the right side of the other figure. Also on the brown hair I might burn a bit to get rid of the glare near the eye.

I can see how I might use this technique.

[lextalionis]

I've experimented further and have yet to mitigate the haloing effect. I even tried double, triple, and quadruple frames with near same results. The author of the link I provided above explains a referencing technique to better align the images before performing the focusing-stack and that didn't seem to help either.

My initial thoughts is that this would rarely be used, but in a very control environment and still subject (flower etc.) ONLY with a tripod and good pano-calibrated it could be used.

Roy

[arlon]

I had excellent results on a rose and a bunch of flowers I was trying to bring into total focus.. Here's a link to the pictures with the input files and the combined file being the last of the series. http://www.pbase.com/arlon/focus_experiment