Spring flowers in our garden

GardenersHelper

GardenersHelper

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Nick
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These are stacks of JPEGs extracted from 6K post focus videos captured hand-held in our garden with a Panasonic G9 and Olympus 60mm macro. The first four were captured in mid February, the other four earlier this month. The JPEGs were extracted, stacked and retouched in Helicon Focus and output as TIFF files for post processing in Lightroom and, in two cases, also Photoshop, and output from Lightroom as 1300 pixel high JPEGs, which were then given slight additional sharpening with Topaz Sharpen AI.


#1 Wallflower - 89 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/320 sec, ISO 500


1459 02 2019_02_17 P1014570 G9+60 HHPFS89f F2.8 1-320 ISO500 EV-1 A30,8+innerC2 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#2 Camellia - 44 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/2500 sec, ISO200.


1459 06 2019_02_17 P1014660 G9+60 HHPFS44f F2.8 1-2500 ISO200 EV-1.3 C1 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#3 Camellia - 20 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/3200 sec, ISO 400 (operator error, could have been base ISO)


1459 08 2019_02_17 P1014688 G9+60 HHPFS20f F2.8 1-3200 ISO400 EV-1.3 C1 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#4 Crocus - 134 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO 800


1459 10 2019_02_17 P1014711 G9+60 HHPFS134f F2.8 1-250 ISO800 EV-0.7 A30,10+innerC1-Edit LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


# 5 Hellebore - 41 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/200 sec, ISO100


1457 03 2019_03_11 P1015788 G9+60 HHPFS41f F2.8 1-200 ISO100 EV-0.7 A29,2+innerC2-Edit-Edit LR 1300h-sharpe by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#6 Magnolia - 32 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/500 sec, ISO 400


1457 05 2019_03_11 P1015812 G9+60 HHPFS32f F2.8 1-500 ISO400 EV-1 A29,2+innerC1 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#7 Camellia - 35 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/320 sec, ISO 100


1457 09 2019_03_11 P1015833 G9+60 HHPFS35f F2.8 1-320 ISO100 EV-1.7 B30,2 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#8 Magnolia - 38 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/2000 sec, ISO100


1457 10 2019_03_11 P1015860 G9+60 HHPFS38f F2.8 1-2000 ISO100 EV-1.3 B30,2 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


--
Nick
Blog https://fliesandflowers.blogspot.com/
Portfolio (under construction) https://gardenersassistant.myportfolio.com/home
Flickr image collections http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/collections/
Latest Flickr uploads http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/
You Tube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw
 
GardenersHelper said:
These are stacks of JPEGs extracted from 6K post focus videos captured hand-held in our garden with a Panasonic G9 and Olympus 60mm macro. The first four were captured in mid February, the other four earlier this month. The JPEGs were extracted, stacked and retouched in Helicon Focus and output as TIFF files for post processing in Lightroom and, in two cases, also Photoshop, and output from Lightroom as 1300 pixel high JPEGs, which were then given slight additional sharpening with Topaz Sharpen AI.


#1 Wallflower - 89 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/320 sec, ISO 500


1459 02 2019_02_17 P1014570 G9+60 HHPFS89f F2.8 1-320 ISO500 EV-1 A30,8+innerC2 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#2 Camellia - 44 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/2500 sec, ISO200.


1459 06 2019_02_17 P1014660 G9+60 HHPFS44f F2.8 1-2500 ISO200 EV-1.3 C1 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#3 Camellia - 20 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/3200 sec, ISO 400 (operator error, could have been base ISO)


1459 08 2019_02_17 P1014688 G9+60 HHPFS20f F2.8 1-3200 ISO400 EV-1.3 C1 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#4 Crocus - 134 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO 800


1459 10 2019_02_17 P1014711 G9+60 HHPFS134f F2.8 1-250 ISO800 EV-0.7 A30,10+innerC1-Edit LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


# 5 Hellebore - 41 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/200 sec, ISO100


1457 03 2019_03_11 P1015788 G9+60 HHPFS41f F2.8 1-200 ISO100 EV-0.7 A29,2+innerC2-Edit-Edit LR 1300h-sharpe by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#6 Magnolia - 32 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/500 sec, ISO 400


1457 05 2019_03_11 P1015812 G9+60 HHPFS32f F2.8 1-500 ISO400 EV-1 A29,2+innerC1 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#7 Camellia - 35 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/320 sec, ISO 100


1457 09 2019_03_11 P1015833 G9+60 HHPFS35f F2.8 1-320 ISO100 EV-1.7 B30,2 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


#8 Magnolia - 38 frames stacked, f/2.8, 1/2000 sec, ISO100


1457 10 2019_03_11 P1015860 G9+60 HHPFS38f F2.8 1-2000 ISO100 EV-1.3 B30,2 LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


--
Nick
Blog https://fliesandflowers.blogspot.com/
Portfolio (under construction) https://gardenersassistant.myportfolio.com/home
Flickr image collections http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/collections/
Latest Flickr uploads http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/
You Tube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBgEwRDfiQMYTPORSzDxvw
Click to expand...

Super work (y)
 
RyanB said:
These are all gorgeous, really loving the first one. You must have had some very still days for all that stacking to work so perfectly.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

It is usually more or less breezy here, and I work hand-held, so there are two sources of movement. Fortunately the stacking software can handle a fair amount of movement. Here is another image from the session when I captured the last four of the images above. I have put a downsized version of the video used to produce this image here at Flickr where you can see the subject moving and movement in the background. That is a fairly typical amount of movement.


1457 14 2019_03_11 P1015896 G9+60 HHPFS78f F2.8 1-200 ISO400 EV-0.3 A30,8+inner C2-Edit LR 1300h-sharpen by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
Last edited:
GardenersHelper said:
That is a fairly typical amount of movement.
Click to expand...
Cheers for the example Nick, not super windy but definitely some movement as you say. I have only tried stacking in PS and it is a lot less forgiving than your method seems to be, or what is just, if not more likely is my technique needs adjusting. Do you quick fire the shots while adjusting the focus or set up each shot in the stack individually?
 
RyanB said:
Cheers for the example Nick, not super windy but definitely some movement as you say.
Click to expand...

What you see in the video is one of the lulls in the breeze where things are only moving a bit, which is why the video could be used to produce a stack. The day was breezier than you would think from that video, see below.

RyanB said:
I have only tried stacking in PS and it is a lot less forgiving than your method seems to be, or what is just, if not more likely is my technique needs adjusting. Do you quick fire the shots while adjusting the focus or set up each shot in the stack individually?
Click to expand...

I use video. Panasonic has a function called post focus. This captures a video as the camera racks the focus from the nearest to the furthest thing it can find to focus on. You can then choose to save one or more JPEGs focused at particular points in the scene, and/or you can create an in-camera stack from the video, optionally choosing (to some extent) where to start and stop the stacking. However, you can ignore that function and simply capture the video. This can then be used to create a stack on your PC. That is what I do.

The advantage of this approach is that the capturing is done fast, at 30 frames per second. The capture may be done in anything from one to, occasionally, ten seconds or more, but even with the longer ones I usually I only want to use frames that were captured during one to three seconds or so. You can tell from the filenames beneath the images how many frames I used for each. For example "HHPFS89f" in the first one's filename tells me that it was a hand-held post focus stack using 89 frames.

It is the fact that the capturing is done so quickly that makes this technique good for the breezy conditions I often work in (I live in a breezy location). You are much more likely to hit a 3 second lull in the breeze where things aren't moving so much (like in the video example I posted) than happening upon a much longer lull when using a slower technique.

The technique is extremely simple to use. Unlike with in-camera focus bracketing, you don't have to make any decisions about the bracketing, such as how large a jump in the focus position there should be from one capture to the next, or how many images to capture. It is very much a "point and shoot" approach. This makes it quick to execute and makes it practical to have half a dozen or more attempts if necessary trying to hit a lull in the breeze, or for other reasons like adjusting the framing.

A disadvantage is that you are stacking JPEGs extracted from a video rather than full size images, JPEG or raw, which you can do with focus bracketing whether done in-camera or manually. However, it turns out that JPEGs can give good results, especially for the G9. The G9 uses a 20 mpix sensor and it can capture 6K video, which produces 18 mpix JPEGs as against the 8 mpix JPEGs produced from 4K post focus. Also, the G9 lets me use a very flat profile, CineLike D. Using this, and turning down the JPEG noise reduction and sharpness to minimum values provides me with JPEGs that I find quite easy and pleasant to work with. One thing that helps with this is that I am very careful about white balance. I set the camera white balance from an 18% grey card (a ColorChecker Passport actually) for pretty much each scene.

As to the processing being forgiving, it is true that specialised stacking software such as Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker are very good at aligning the images, resizing as necessary. However, I have found that a lot of the stacks need rather careful and sometimes somewhat complicated processing to get rid of problems such as halos and noisy and/or posterised backgrounds. I think botanical stacks may be particularly prone to these problems, especially halos (I can explain why I think that if you are interested). I find that producing stacked images is much more time-consuming than dealing with single image captures. But it is giving me results that I like the look of and that I couldn't get with single image captures, and the extra effort seems worthwhile to me.
 
Ahh! Thanks for the 'very' thorough explanation. I have to say I was wondering how you were managing to get so many frames in your stacks when you were shooting handheld. Sadly I have no equipment with that capability. In the past when hand stacking I have usually used a narrower aperture and bracket each shot according to dof. For flowers like the ones you have shot here, normally I would only use 5-10 maximum layers in the stack. Usually get something usable after sifting through the frames to find ones that wont quite match up with layers above and below in the stack after alignment in PS. After the stack I usually have to clone some details into areas the blending process missed out on. No where near as comprehensive as your method and I guess the down side is I don't usually get that nice smooth BG that comes with shooting wide open.

GardenersHelper said:
I find that producing stacked images is much more time-consuming than dealing with single image captures. But it is giving me results that I like the look of and that I couldn't get with single image captures, and the extra effort seems worthwhile to me.
Click to expand...
I have to agree there, a lot of effort but your results speak for themselves.
 
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