Focus Slabbing - a step by step guide to advanced focus stacking
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- Опубликовано: 8 июл 2024
- Advanced Focus Stacking - a step by step guide to slabbing
I was just checking the video to make sure I hadn't missed anything and I had! Can't believe it - must be distracted. No thank you to my stalwart patrons on Patreon and at the website! Thank you so much for supporting me! You are so kind and I am so grateful!
Get a lot of questions about this particular workflow. Slabbing is one of the most useful skills in macro photography, allowing you to maintain much tighter control over the management of individual input images, sub stacks, and sub stack output files. An invaluable technique for deeper stacks and/or more challenging subjects, especially those subjects prone to stacking errors. It isn’t too complicated but there a couple of steps that have to be done right to prevent a zombie apocalypse (glad somebody was actually reading this.
I will do the followup retouching video as soon as I am able to secure a computer adequate for the task. Please let me know if you have any questions.
You can get Zerene Stacker from Zerene Systems - tell Rik that Allan sent you - he won’t know who you are talking about.
Then call Jeff, at Lightglass Optics (www.lightglassoptics.com) and tell him the same thing. Then order your Mitutoyo 5x Plan Apo LWD infinity corrected microscope objective, along with a 10x (have him send that one to me, please).
Before I do the links for the stuff used to take the shots in this video, I have to tell you about two NEW BENDY ARMS from SMALL RIG (sorry for shouting, but this things are so excellent!). The first is just a heavier and stronger version of the old 9”, but the second is a truly amazing bendy arm - it is shortish but it is used mainly by that weird guy who shoots rockets into space every weekend and invented the driverless car (I invented the carless driver though) to hold the booster rockets onto his spaceships (or of it isn’t, it should be). These really are the best of the best.
The 9” arm - amzn.to/3hpWtKt
the clamps - amzn.to/3xtjykT
the brilliant short bendy arm (get 20, at least) - amzn.to/3wpJuwg
You will need to get a Raynox DCR-150, so get a DCR-250 as well, while you are at it. If you don’t have any bellows, buy two sets of cheap extension tubes and these adapters (for you camera mount, of course) and you can be taking superb photographs of wee tiny things by the weekend. Some of these links are affiliate links with Amazon. That means if you get your stuff through my link, I might get a tiny commission (unless you buy a ship), and you don’t have to pay a penny extra.
The Raynox DCR-150 - amzn.to/3hnTcvd
The DCR-250 - amzn.to/2SSgfVg
The tubes - amzn.to/3xoqoYQ
The rings - amzn.to/3wpJUTm
The adapters (go to www.allanwallsphotography.com)
The external drive you are absolutely going to need - This only seems expensive - $250 for 10TB is a steal, and you will fill it up (I have filled up 3x 8TB drives) - amzn.to/3AFbuiP
The black velvet you must use for truly black backgrounds - amzn.to/3wpKzEk
If you are well off, get a faster one than mine
If you are Mr. Bezos, get this one - amzn.to/3yBqMDo
All my photographs were taken using either a Nikon D850
A Nikon D7500, or
An iPhone 12 max
One of the images was taken with the Tamron 90mm macro lens (on sale - great price! amzn.to/3hP5YBX)
If you have a late model iMac Pro 27” 5K with at least the 10-core dual Xeon processors, 64GB of memory, the 12GB GPU, a 6TB SSD, etc. etc., may I have it, please? 
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Another great in depth tutorial ! I am loving my MIT 5x …Jeff gave me great service .
Loved the tutorial thanks Allan. I am just getting started with Zyrene.
Excellent tutorial. I'm fairly new to Zerene having committed to a full licence. Been very impressed with Zerene so far but not ventured into slabbing or adjusting parameters yet. Your video has given me a lot to ponder. Thanks 👍
It is the power and versatility of the retouching tools and the batch processing options that put ZS in a league of its own. You will love it.
The art of patience. I have "slabbed" a few times but have not often taken full advantage of the materials generated to assist in cloning. I'm just too impatient, though I expect to become more dedicated to producing better results through cloning as I learn to take the time to capture the best source images possible.
Cloning (whether from slabbing outputs or from source images) is of course most effective when the source images are as good as possible.
(This is a long way of saying a blend of "garbage in, garbage out" and "quality not quantity").
I've watched enough of your videos to appreciate your dedication to perfecting your craft, and am taking lessons in not compromising.
Thanks Ron, You are dead right. The image you use as a clone source must be sharp in the area you are retouching, but it doesn't have to be perfect or complete. You can use multiple source images and use the sharpest bits, and it only has to be sharper than the image being retouched! It is a good idea to step back every few minutes and look at the big picture. It is not unusual for me to get stuck in to an area and be focused so intently on fixing that eye, that I forget to sit back and look at the effect my work is having at 100%, instead of 400%. Good luck!
Amazing video, thanks Allan! Just one quick question:
Is there any reason to export the slabs back to LR, other than having the ability to then retouch them a bit more before reloading them back into Zerene? Thanks!
I like to set a custom button to toggle in and out of crop mode. I don't shoot weddings though.
Most things you say are worth repeating 😉
I'd like to prepare my insects for macrophotography. Do you use a stereomicroscope. I've watched you relaxing the specimens an pinning them. All the best from Colorado USA.. 🇺🇸😎
Hi Allan loving your channel. A quick question I notice that on your Lightroom setup you have a folder for a D850.
I am interested to get your opinion on using the Focus Shift Shooting option for macro subjects with the D850? vs using the manual adjustment with a focus rail.
I am slowly building up my rig for macro based on your channel and recommendations and have the following:-
Nikon D850
Nikon 105 macro AFS
Older Nikon 60mm macro
NISI focusing rail
NISI 77mm Close up lens
Home made macro cage with Lab lifter
Knog LED light for a Gopro
3 Flash speedlites mounted on Manfrotto super clamps and flash stands
IKEA LED lights as you recommended
Flash triggers
NIkon wired camera remotes intervalometer, one manual and one intervalometer
Cheers
Ray
Thanks Ray! I think that focus shift shooting is fantastic for using in the field to shoot landscapes when hyperfocal coverage is not enough. It is also occasionally useful for field macro, if you have a tripod on hand. It is fantastic in the studio for still life, or product photography, even when you need really small steps (for a 24-70). But it is not a macro focus stacking device. It is best reserved for use with larger subjects, like handbags, hand grenades, and hands. There is a rule I like to stick to in the studio - if my subject is larger than the entrance pupil of whatever lens I am using, I never use traditional focus stacking. This is because of the issues with parallax, which change the outline of the larger subject as the camera moves closer. These should be stacked with the focus ring of the camera, keeping everything in position. And this is where the D850 can shine with the focus shift functionality. Use it on either 1 or 10 (I cannot remember what the shortest one is - but use that). That right there is the most useful piece of advice you have received since uncle Roger told you to lose the hippie haircut back in '62.
@@AllanWallsPhotography Many thanks Allan look forward to your next video. Cheers Ray
Amazing technic Alan. Thnx.v.m. I use Helicon, there must be something likewise in there?
Apparently not. I've seen request to add this feature on their forum all the way back to 2013 and still nothing which is very disapointing. They only work around is to manually select substack of pictures including overlapping while always selecting the very first photo of the stack. It's the only way the software is able to maintain a proper alignment
@@FullMetal179 thnx for your reply. I’m gonne try it with your tips.
I am sure that there is. I have not looked at Helicon in a long time so I really don't know how they manage sub-stack processing. You can always do it manually, I still do when I want to vary the sub-stack depths. I will look into it and say something in the retouching video. Thanks!
@@AllanWallsPhotography manualy was what i was thinking aswel. I am gonne try that out and get back to you. Thnx Allan.
Best tip in the video for me was the fact of corrections before the stack. Never thought of it. I allways, directly load the images into helicon. Then the processing. I think your method Allan will save a lot of work.
Greetings good Sir, I confess I've only had the time to skim this latest video. I was looking for evidence of the evolution of your macro lighting cage that in a short email exchange a while back you mentioned you might improve - have you? And if so, I'd love to see it. Thanks!
Great question! The cage has been evolving, but progress was halted for a time ($) and has just resumed. I have also been in talks with a potential parts source and things are moving along. This is going to be a pretty big project and I just need to have all my ducks in a row before we start. Thanks Ken, it won't be much longer.
Allan......you were concerned about the slab files being out of order.........for whatever reason LR looks at the numbers in a peculiar way when importing. It reads the first numeral therefore it lists them 1, 10, 11, 12, 13 and then 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. Rik's Zerene Stacker is a little smarter than that.......when loading in to ZS the files are placed back in the proper sequential order...........
1, 10, 11, 2, 3... that's alphabetical order. It's better to name the files 01 02 03 04... then they will sort correctly. That's why the first picture in a camera might be DSC_0001 not DSC_1.
@@johnd7564 Thx for the advice. Respectfully tho, I'm not sure why it's better.........but the posting was not about what should be done. It was what I discovered when I was downloading images into LR and then dropping them into ZS.
@@Photosbytw Ahhh I didn't mean to advise, really, just explaining why an alphabetical sort goes into that funny order. I personally do like to use the zero-filled version (DSC_0001 etc.) so that all my tools including the operating system put the files in the same order, but I have no advice that YOU should do it, or any sense of indignation if you don't. :)
@@johnd7564 No problems here......:)
It is still off-putting to see a slab deck in LR that is arranged using the Martian Semidecimal System. So I rearrange then by file name which is how ZS would read then anyway. Someone at Adobe has something against OCD, ye reckon?