CombineZM

I have just started playing about again with CombineZM, i`m finding though that its applying to much sharpening on the images, the one below for instance, i dident apply any sharpening at all. And the one below that one is how it came out of the raw editor.

I am coming to terms with it now i have what is a homemade rail type thingy.

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Hiya,

I believe you can remove the code that is responsible for the sharpening in Combinezm. LordV i think has done this. Nice shot though

Gordon- you can remove the sharpening from the stacking macro in czm if it's causing you a problem. I just don't tend to apply any more sharpening. If you are interested I'll send you the modded macro if you pm with an email address.
Brian V.

It is causing a problem yes, i would rather apply my own sharpening, i`m not sure why CombineZM is getting involved with sharpening ...

action man..can u show me the rail thing your on about..and also do u use the mpe-65?

I had a little go just now and it seems a lot better, thanks Brian.

I dont have the MPE-65, as they dont make it for my camera , i`ll take a picture of my so-called rail hopefully tomorrow ...

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Action_Man wrote in post #5007449
I had a little go just now and it seems a lot better, thanks Brian.

No probs- glad you worked out how to load it - think I took out the high-pass filter and contrast adjustment from the macro.

Brian V.

Hi everyone, I think I may have posted my pictures at the wrong place. This is my first visit to this site and was hoping someone would tell me what I am doing wrong. I just downloaded combinezm and took 16 photos of a ruler and stacked them which turned out pretty good. Then I took 21 photos of a pill box and it came out looking crappy. When I saw the outcome of the ruler, I was in heaven, I thought it looked amazing considering I was using a 105 macro with very little dof. Then when I did the pill box using the exact same lighting, lens and camera settings, it came out terrible. Can someone help me figure out what I did wrong...I really would appreciate it...Here are the two photos.

Hi,
I suspect you did nothing wrong in the second shot. I think it's a combination of the software and that specific subject not working.
Try again with a different subject that has more high contrast detail on it. eg a hair comb or flower.

Brian v.

Thank you Brian, I will give that a try today. So glad to have found this site...Looking forward to joining in on all the conversations. I just visited your site,,,what amazing refraction shots. I specialize in Waterdrop photography and have never actually thought of focus stacking for my work..After seeing your beautiful talented work, I may indeed begin to try and work some of that into my photos.
May I ask a question? When you do your refraction drops on a stem, exactly how do you focus. From what little I know so far, I know you focus slice by slice from front to back, but when your stem and drops are crossways, how do you get that all in focus...Just curious...I'll attach one of my waterdrop shots and see what a pro like you thinks...

Can someone maybe tell me why the middle of the flower, using combine zm wouldn't have been in focus.

Your 2 shots look great. Re the flower shot, assuming you do have a shot with the flower center in good focus, I think it's again the result of problems when there is low contrast detail. Zerene stacker is better at handling this sort of stack but also has a big advantage of an in built editor which allows you to paint detail from one of the slices back onto the stacked photo. None of the focus stacking programs are perfect.

Brian V

Thanks again Brian for the reply. I went back through the flower pics and noticed that I didn't have the middle of the flower in focus, I guess I was just worried about how many slices I was getting and making sure the front and back of the flower was in focus and didn't really pay attention to hitting the middle. although, I am wondering that maybe since the flower was move out in front towards the camera the front and back that I wouldn't have been able to actually get the middle in focus anyway. Oh well, I will keep at it til I get it right. Also, you didn't mention about how do you focus on your waterdrop flowers when they are actually side to side...Just wondering.

pasknucklehead wrote in post #17699692
Also, you didn't mention about how do you focus on your waterdrop flowers when they are actually side to side...Just wondering.

Not quite sure what you are asking here. The main thing is to try and get both the refraction and the dewdrop in focus so most of the focus stacking is actually in front of the grass blade to get the refracted image in focus, the droplet and blade come into focus last.

Brian v.

I know sometimes I just can't get the question out clearly,, but let me try again. I heard that when you do the focus stacking, you focus front to back. But when you have a photo, and I will post one here, the pic itself is actually horizontal, so I can't focus front to back, that is where I am confused.