braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350 
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Post by braat on Feb 3, 2020 15:21:46 GMT -5
What to do with this growing pile of shiny rocks has been on my mind since I started this rock tumbling obsession....I've been trying different things as I come across ideas I like and this "spider" is one of the results. I also enjoy photography and bought a fancy macro closeup lens a while back and along the way discovered a process called focus stacking where you take a bunch of photos focusing on different parts and combine the photos in software hoping to get a single photo with everything in focus. Here are the results of my first attempt...for comparison's sake the first photo is a normal closeup shot with a lot of the spider out of focus...second photo is the focus stacking result. I'm happy how it turned out and look forward to trying this in other ways! Some details viewers might be interested in - to make the spider I soldered 4 equal lengths of copper wire (ordinary house AC wire) together and bent them to form the legs and glued the rock onto the legs. The eyes were hole punched from white labels, stuck in place and the pupils I dabbed with a black magic marker/sharpie. I took 14 photos with my Canon T6S using a Canon 100 mm macro lens on a small table tripod. I manually adjusted the focus on each photo so that different parts were in focus then used a free focus stacking program called CombineZP to make the final photo. Interestingly it wasn't until after seeing the final photo that I noticed the white thread hanging under the spider...turned out it was a strand of glue from the glue gun I used! Also the hole punch I used for the eyes didn't cut clean all the way around and I had to tear out the holes...you can see the tear tags in the photo. I could see the tags with the naked eye but the closeup showed the tags a whole lot more but not too worried as I think it adds "character". Lesson learned...macro photography will expose all your mistakes   IMG_5135 by braat33, on Flickr  FOCUS STACK - 14 PICS by braat33, on Flickr |
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Post by fernwood on Feb 3, 2020 15:28:44 GMT -5
I like the spider.
The stacking made for a nice photo.
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Feb 3, 2020 15:33:55 GMT -5
I like the spider. The stacking made for a nice photo. Thanks...not perfect but showed me what's possible with focus stacking.... |
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Post by miket on Feb 3, 2020 15:51:19 GMT -5
Cool.
I've never even heard of that technique, it looks like it works well!
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Feb 3, 2020 15:55:08 GMT -5
Cool. I've never even heard of that technique, it looks like it works well! If you google "focus stacked images" some of the photos are mind blowing... |
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Post by knave on Feb 3, 2020 16:10:42 GMT -5
Awesome!
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Post by rockjunquie on Feb 3, 2020 17:04:25 GMT -5
Great result! I hate to say it, but I really like the depth of field, though. Wish I could get that much in my photos.
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Post by aDave on Feb 3, 2020 20:07:02 GMT -5
braat, nice work playing with the focus stacking. If you're interested, starting at the below linked post, there are some great examples and an ensuing discussion about the technique. forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/post/941089/threadI had considered getting the product that txrockhunter referred to in his posts. I never did follow up and get it.
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Feb 3, 2020 22:18:45 GMT -5
braat , nice work playing with the focus stacking. If you're interested, starting at the below linked post, there are some great examples and an ensuing discussion about the technique. forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/post/941089/threadI had considered getting the product that txrockhunter referred to in his posts. I never did follow up and get it. Thanks aDave , good info and humor in that link . Actually it was here on RTH somewhere (too lazy to search it down) where I first heard of focus stacking when I asked about taking better photos. I'm going to play with it some more and if I progress beyond what the freeware can do I'll maybe buy something...Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker are 2 good stacking programs I'm reading. Anyways another area I'm compelled to fool around with till I become "adequate" at it then wander off onto something else...history repeats in that respect |
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Post by RocksInNJ on Feb 4, 2020 4:50:01 GMT -5
Cool little spider project and a nice job with the photo stacking. Never heard of it myself either. You learn something new every day. Thanks for sharing.
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Feb 4, 2020 16:06:49 GMT -5
Olympus TG-3 point and shoot has the stacked focus built in braat. They have a DSLR that has it built in too. The point and shoot works well. I guess the software is burned into a chip. Click the shutter and it takes about 10 photos quickly as the focus increments from front to back of subject. Best with a tripod used. All this is brilliant technology. I just took this photo. I made a video of the camera taking the photo to display the 'rapid fire shutter' burst. Processing on youtube. not stacked focus  stacked focus  |
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Feb 4, 2020 17:20:53 GMT -5
Video of camera bursting stacked photos braat. If the cameral is moved during shutter sequence the camera will/can not assemble photos. In some cases a 'ghost' will be assembled when slight movements occur. |
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Feb 4, 2020 18:58:33 GMT -5
Video of camera bursting stacked photos braat . If the cameral is moved during shutter sequence the camera will/can not assemble photos. In some cases a 'ghost' will be assembled when slight movements occur. Interesting, did not know cameras had that built in but not surprised. Couple years back I played around with HDR some but it was a lot of fooling around taking pics and processing them on a PC (kinda like focus stacking), results were nice but not worth the effort for me. Now I think most cell phones and tablets have HDR built in? In younger days I spent a small fortune keeping up with technology on the computer side...started in the Radio Shack TRS-80/Apple II Plus era and later on moved to the Commodore Amiga and eventually to the PC where I am still (with a couple Android tablets as well). But I refuse to cave in to technology when it comes to cell phones... zombies everywhere with heads buried in phones and I don't want to turn into that so all I got is a dinosaur flip phone |
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Post by knave on Feb 4, 2020 19:02:30 GMT -5
I think the iPhone 11 pro has it also
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gemfeller
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Post by gemfeller on Feb 5, 2020 2:24:15 GMT -5
I got an Olympus TG-4 and haven't had a lot of time to work with it. These are some shots I made with it experimentally to see how it works with rock stuff. The subjects are some amethyst cabs I cut and there's a visible difference between the unstacked and stacked images. There's still lots of room for improving my technique. I hope to get better shots (I have some archived but my files are a mess and I wasn't able to find them quickly). Unstacked:  Stacked:  |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 5, 2020 7:53:43 GMT -5
gemfellerI have found that focusing on the front of the subject works best. Then the photos sequence starting at closest part of subject and sequence going to back of subject. The TG should easily stack the amethyst cabs in your example front to rear being that it is not very deep of a subject. Probably does not hurt to use a burst grade SD card. Some SD cards have speed ratings these days. These SD cards can receive and compile information very quickly. I do not know the terminology for these cards. I believe there is a number in the upper right corner of the SD card that rates it's speed.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 5, 2020 8:01:02 GMT -5
braatCamera on left is an iPadPro camera maybe 4 years old. Camera on right is a standard iPad camera. That iPadPro camera is amazing. It may be the same camera as the iPhone 10/11 has. 
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Post by Drummond Island Rocks on Feb 5, 2020 8:10:55 GMT -5
braatCamera on left is an iPadPro camera maybe 4 years old. Camera on right is a standard iPad camera. That iPadPro camera is amazing. It may be the same camera as the iPhone 10/11 has. The Iphone XS Max kicks it up another notch and has 2 separate lenses. Telephoto and wide angle. The phone knows which one to use for the photo depending on the zoom level. Supposed to eliminate some digital zoom distortion. I have had it for about 6 months and really like it for quick and easy rock photos.  Chuck |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 5, 2020 8:17:45 GMT -5
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 5, 2020 8:33:17 GMT -5
braatCamera on left is an iPadPro camera maybe 4 years old. Camera on right is a standard iPad camera. That iPadPro camera is amazing. It may be the same camera as the iPhone 10/11 has. The Iphone XS Max kicks it up another notch and has 2 separate lenses. Telephoto and wide angle. The phone knows which one to use for the photo depending on the zoom level. Supposed to eliminate some digital zoom distortion. I have had it for about 6 months and really like it for quick and easy rock photos. Chuck Never has so much money been pumped into camera technology due to advent of cell phones Chuck. Two cameras in the corner of a cell phone, what's next ? In the past 5 years alone cell cameras have improved incredibly. The size of a camera is not the dominating factor in photo quality. It helps. With new micro lens manufacturing and amplification technology cell phone cameras may end up being some of the best within fairly broad applications. Using the large iPad screen adds a new dimension to accurate composing. |
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