It might be worth you having a look at this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzVD95-9YOU It's a bit long-winded, but very informative (for me). Have a look at the section starting from 8 mins onward.

Apparently, the best way to shoot is to use a bellows but with the lens fixed and the camera moving to change the point of focus. This means that the "entrance pupil" is in a fixed position (relative to the subject).

Cheers
Andrew

Which lens do you use for this? Most change length as you adjust focus, which moves the objective lens in relation to the subject. Doesn't that affect image size?

The only lens I have which doesn't change length as you adjust focus is an old XR Rikenon 300mm f/4.5 APO manual telephoto, which is a bit impractical to use with extension tubes - though I have on a couple of occasions. Even then, CombineZP still did some rescaling before stacking.

Andrew

Yes, it would if the stacking software didn't align the images by scaling, rotating and translating them so they match before stacking them. I have used CombineZP occasionally and it certainly does do that. You can also export the aligned images and step through them to check that they are properly aligned.

I *assume* (but do not know) that Photoshop CS6 and other software that provides stacking functionality does something similar.

Cheers
Andrew

Yes, I use it occasionally. It works very well for me.


I spent several hours at the Trafford Centre a couple of weeks back. I was dim enough not to take anything wider than a DA 35 f/2.4. This is three (hand-held) shots stitched together with Microsoft ICE.




Andrew

Arrived this morning. Great condition, works fine. Thanks very much.

Andrew

I have seen that effect from images processed in Photoshop Elements - but only if I've previously been using selection feathering to deliberately create a vignette and have then forgotten to reset the feathering back to zero.

Andrew

pm sent

An image from the K30 is 4928 x 3264 so needs cropping to 4352 x 3264 (i.e. 4:3) before upsizing to 4800 x 3600 to produce a 300dpi 16" x 12" print. To produce a print that size at 300dpi that doesn't need upsizing, the sensor would have to be 3600 x 1.5 = 5400 pixels wide by 3600 pixels high (i.e. 3:2) which is 19.4MP. (Just thought I'd get that in before anyone else notices).

Having said that, I do actually crop to 4:3 and then upsize to 4800 x 3600 on export from LR5 and it seems to work fine.

Andrew

Yes, I can sign on to that notion too.

The largest print I ever produce is 16" x 12" for club competitions. I use a Pentax K30 and have yet to notice prints from other camera club members, that are more detailed than those produced from RAWs taken by my (relatively) humble Pentax K30 - irrespective of the number of megapixels of the camera that took the photo or whether it is APS-C or full frame.

As a rule, the big differences seem to be those resulting from the actions of the photographer, rather than differences in the camera.

Andrew

Yep, but some folks might not.

I've just downloaded it, played with it & uninstalled it. It looks like a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.

Cheers
Andrew