Tuesday 12 February 2013

Day 43/365 Practical night

My first practical night at the Photographic Society, and the subject was 'Focus Stacking'.  At last, I thought, someone might be able to explain the workings (or lack of) of 'Combine ZP'.  Not the highest of turn-outs ... seven members, to be exact, each with cameras and laptops.

Unfortunately, for half (OK, three) of the attendees - with Nikons - the tethered method, using Canon's EOS Utility, was lost somewhat.  For myself, not in possession of PhotoShop CS5, I too was struggling to be able to follow the demonstration.  Having made a suggestion of using EOS Utility to not only take the shots, but also adjust the focus, thus avoiding camera movement, I made my exit.

I came away with one question ... why, when trying to achieve maximum DoF, using stacking, would anyone choose f 2.8 or wider?!?!?  The method was originally conceived by photomicroscopists to obtain sharper images and improve depth of field at very high magnifications using optical microscopes, where selecting a smaller (any) aperture was not on option.  Surely, with modern DSLR cameras, a more sensible approach would be to use f 11, 16 or  22!?!

Anyway, what do I know?


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