jacon12 Jon, what are you using for ground cover/litter? I swear in that last image, right at the bottom of the picture almost dead center there is a full size oak leaf there. Jarrell
Jon, what are you using for ground cover/litter? I swear in that last image, right at the bottom of the picture almost dead center there is a full size oak leaf there.
Jarrell
It's a maple-leaf and is made by Silflor in different shades. They are a bit overscale, being more suited to O gauge, but look the part from a distance. I just took these photos to show you the effect- no Helicon Focus was used in the making of these photos. :)
Jon
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Thanks Crandell.
What you're usaying makes perfect sense. So far I have been moving the manual focus a smidge for each shot, letting the camera find it's own point of focus.
I also had the monitor at the wrong angle so the result of the final photo looks washed out. Easily fixed.
A very nice image, Jon, and you are likely to be your own worst critic.
I pay a lot of attention to what I am telling the camera to do when I enter the 'locomotive zone'. You can crop out not-so-great close-up rails and bushes near the bottom of the image if you need to, but it is not possible to do much to a locomotive well into the field of view if you botch that. My method, to date, has been to try to get the camera to lock onto the nose/number-boards/pilot, take that shot, and then if I have to, take the camera to the side to find something at the same distance as the from the perch to the first truck or engine on a steamer. Say the first pair of drivers. If I can get something quite close and the camera to agree to lock on it during the half-depress, then I trip it and restore the camera to its perch.
Next shot, on this diesel, would be at the rear truck, and from then I would go in about 13 cm increments for the next meter or so of the scene depth.
I hope that makes sense....be careful to provide several hard focus points along the length of the locomotive if it is at an oblique angle to the lens....as we almost always shoot our locomotives. Nose and headlight area first, then a bit further back then at least one more focal point on the locomotive, to then move on to the first car, and so on.
Nobody said it would be fast and easy, but you do get more savvy and quicker, and the results speak loudly IMO. Not that you were ever far off anyway, which I would like you to take as a sincere compliment.
Crandell
selector I don't expect to see a better shot than that one, Jon. Marvellous! Crandell
I don't expect to see a better shot than that one, Jon. Marvellous!
Thanks Crandell. I certainly struck lucky with that one.
I took another series of photos today for the latest image. I chose the subject, as the length of the scene is approximately 7 feet from the camera to the sky/backscene.
Included here are the first and last photos in the stack, the basic Helicon Focus image and the straightened, cropped and re-lit image after editing in Picasa3
First shot
Last shot
Initial Helicon Focus image
Final image after editing
There are still some imperfections with the depth of field, especially on the loco, but further practice should improve this aspect.
superbe The picture has great depth of field but to my eyes the brick work on the buildings looks distorted.
The picture has great depth of field but to my eyes the brick work on the buildings looks distorted.
Bob,
I think that has more to do with the camera than the software. I've noticed a slight 'fish-eye lens' look to some of my photos which may be causing the distortion.
Jon,
Great modeling as always. The picture has great depth of field but to my eyes the brick work on the buildings looks distorted.
Happy RailRoading
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
Jon, those are absolutely stunning! The first one looks like the real thing! It IS a model, isn't it?
A few more practice shots
I still have some issues with re-sizing, but that will come with practice
jacon12 Watch out, this stuff is addictive!
Watch out, this stuff is addictive!
It certainly is, Jarrell
I've had a bit more practice with the new software and am finding new capabilities and functions all the time. I also decided to try a photo or two at Sweethome Chicago for comparison purposes. The photos were also cropped and edited using Picasa3.
That looks great, Jon! Watch out, this stuff is addictive!
Thanks for the favourable comments and helpful tips, guys. This is definitely the way to go.
I 've uploaded the third photo to Railimages, showing a CSX SD35 passing the West Yard at Sweethome Alabama. I used the Helicon Focus software again but also cropped and edited the photo in Picasa3, as well
The full sized photo is on the SWA facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweethome-Alabama/201342969884638
Hopefully time for another one tonight
It's a great tip, Dave. When taking only one shot where you don't intend to stack images, this type of arrangement can really make your image pop due to steadiness, but also for allowing the lens to be low into the scene. The images looks like it was taken from a scale person standing on the ground. More realism.
However, for stacking mulitple images, you must be able to have the camera aim back into the scene with about 98% accuracy between shots...or else the software goes beserk trying to line up edges and overlap the same leaves or wheel flanges from image-to-image. It will only give you about 85-90% success, meaning a sometimes horrible result that you simple must discard. In the case of stacking therefore, something largely immobile and heavy, ideal with a smooth side facing the camera body, allows you to take up the camera, focus further, trip the shutter time, and then reach over and slide the camera into precisely the same platform for essentially perfect registration between shots. Combine ZP will give you a very nice image for that effort (including learning how to do all this) where it makes a thin croppable fringe around the entire image's perimeter, all four sides, that you can crop in a heartbeat and not lose the nice detail you sought at the outset in the kept portion.
i know this sounds like a nightmare to some of you, but like learning how to use a new camera, you start with the first step and keep at it. Before long, you are posting how-to's in forums.
selector A tripod is great, but you must be able to keep a very close orientation to the same place from shot-to-shot...or so it is with CZP. Otherwise you get large and weird fringes and shadows that ruin the final product. So, while I have used a tripod, when the camera simply must be sat in the scenery, I make a cradle of heavy smooth-sided items that will withstand me taking up and replacing the camera so that I can manually focus it to deeper depths for each successive shot. Crandell
A tripod is great, but you must be able to keep a very close orientation to the same place from shot-to-shot...or so it is with CZP. Otherwise you get large and weird fringes and shadows that ruin the final product. So, while I have used a tripod, when the camera simply must be sat in the scenery, I make a cradle of heavy smooth-sided items that will withstand me taking up and replacing the camera so that I can manually focus it to deeper depths for each successive shot.
When you must place the camera in a scene you can make a very stable platform by partially filling a sandwich bag with unpopped popcorn or something similar. The camera will nestle down into it nicely and will be very stable. A cloth bag works better if you have one available. The cloth doesn't trap air, which makes plastic harder to use.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
" So, to be clear, the heavy imaging load is up close to the lens where even a few cm change in distance can be completely out of focus. As you progress deeper into the field, you can enlarge the separation of focus depth a bit more. I hope that makes sense."
Crandell just hit on one of the 3 factors that control depth of field. Besides lens opening and lens size. e.g wide angle vs. telephoto. that 3rd factor is distance from the camera to the subject. The closer you are the more shallow depth of field is. If the camera is no more than mere inches from the subject, and in the example of using focus stacking software, that would be your nearest point in the image, the depth of field can be thin as a piece of paper. But the further you focus out into the image, making your subsequent exposures, the deeper/wider the depth of field gets even though you haven't moved the camera or changed the lens opening. So when using focus stacking you have to be careful to make more shots in the closest range. The idea is to make those super thin areas of depth of field overlap each other. As you focus deeper depth of field gets wider so you don't have to make as many exposures to get them to overlap.
Wonderful, ain't it!
selector Oh, macro...I forgot to mention, Jon, that I routinely resort to macro mode for the first 20-30 cm of focus in any one scene. If I am confident that my model stuff closest to the lens can withstand some sharp scrutiny (meaning it is good enough ), I will do my trial exposures for camera angle and lighting/shadows, and for things sticking up out of the cab that shouldn't be, hairs, insects, etc, and then I take my first three or four images in the series at about 4 cm increments, maybe 5 cm. I will then switch back out of macro and do the rest with a roughly 10 cm separation until the last two to the backdrop are about 40 cm apart. So, to be clear, the heavy imaging load is up close to the lens where even a few cm change in distance can be completely out of focus. As you progress deeper into the field, you can enlarge the separation of focus depth a bit more. I hope that makes sense. Crandell
Oh, macro...I forgot to mention, Jon, that I routinely resort to macro mode for the first 20-30 cm of focus in any one scene. If I am confident that my model stuff closest to the lens can withstand some sharp scrutiny (meaning it is good enough ), I will do my trial exposures for camera angle and lighting/shadows, and for things sticking up out of the cab that shouldn't be, hairs, insects, etc, and then I take my first three or four images in the series at about 4 cm increments, maybe 5 cm. I will then switch back out of macro and do the rest with a roughly 10 cm separation until the last two to the backdrop are about 40 cm apart. So, to be clear, the heavy imaging load is up close to the lens where even a few cm change in distance can be completely out of focus. As you progress deeper into the field, you can enlarge the separation of focus depth a bit more. I hope that makes sense.
Suuuweeet! For Sweethome Alabama. Jon, you're gonna have more fun with that program! I do notice, in the second photo that in the immediate foreground at the bottom edge there is a small band that is out of focus. Is that a program error or will your camera not focus quite that close? Whatever it is, if it's not correctable then simply allowing room for it in future photos and then cropping the area out would be the answer.
Have you tried also the CombineZP program?
Oh, you're gonna be dangerous with this!
Thanks for all the information Crandell, duly printed off for future reference.
My digital camera has a neat manual focus macro that allows me to adjust the focus up to 20 times with just a slight nudge on the button, so a 2 second delay is usually enough for me. I like the idea of a heavy cradle and I think I'll build one to fit the camera, with some sort of adjuster for inconveniently-angled scenery. I think Bob Boudreau has a photo somewhere, of one he made.
Jon, I know the various programmes vary out there in terms of what they like in the way of raw material. For example, Combine ZP likes tiff files, but they all have to be the same size. I use Faststone's 'batch convert' feature that will turn all your various jpegs into tiff files of the same size, and once that is done. you import those tiffs as a batch into CZP for its magic. I have no experience with Helicon, although when it first came out I think it got very good reviews. It may like batch conversions as well...but not sure. In any event, if you save the final product as a tiff, cropping will keep the resolution and graphic information 'tight' and rich for the best results.
One of the first things Jarrell told me to do prior to post-production of an image was to save it as a tiff. Every time you save a jpeg, you get compression artefacts that degrade. Jarrell told me that tiffs are much more tolerant to changes and saves as you go along.
A tripod is great, but you must be able to keep a very close orientation to the same place from shot-to-shot...or so it is with CZP. Otherwise you get large and weird fringes and shadows that ruin the final product. So, while I have used a tripod, when the camera simply must be sat in the scenery, I make a cradle of heavy smooth-sided items that will withstand me taking up and replacing the camera so that I can manually focus it to deeper depths for each successive shot. Once I find something at about the right distance for the next shot in the series, I half-depress the shutter release button to get the focus locked, and then I depress it fully to trip the mechanism....except it is on a 10 second delay. I have plenty of time to restore the camera to its perch/cradle, duck out of the shadow I always seem to cause in the scene lurking over the camera, and wait for the shutter to flick. Repeat.
I must say, though, that I have always admired your modelling and your ability to take realistic images. It is weird accepting that you are actually trying to improve on what you can already do.
Following a discussion on photography and depth of field in another thread, I downloaded a 4-week trial of some computer software called Helicon focus
http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconfocus.html
Simply put, the software takes a number of partially-focused photos and layers them on top of one another to produce a single perfectly focused shot.
Here are my first two attempts. The first photo used 16 layers and a tripod, the second used 8 layers and the camera was perched on the layout. I think a tripod is the way to go.
I had to reduce the size of the final images to get them under 2mb and I dare say I could have edited the photos further using Photoshop or Picasa3
I still have a way to go but am quite pleased with the results so far.