Yea! It did a very good job! Apparently it has a very good plugin for Capture one, which might be a good replacement for Photoshop + Lightroom. Thanks for watching Jeff!
Great video, super useful im definitely going to give affinity photo a try. I dislike focus stacking in Photoshop so much that more often than not forgo stacking images at all and hope that the majority of the scene is in focus with a single shot!
Maybe this is obvious but When you actually take the Focus Bracket set, do you move your focus spot to closest item in scene, press AF-ON to lock focus then press and release shutter? Or do you hold the shutter down until finished. When I activate the shutter the camera appears to launch ahead and take the shots and ends before the Number of Shots I selected (reached infinity focus). This was using 12-24mm f2.8 GM at 12mm (could it be I did the right thing but with such a small scene and wide open at 2.8, everything is almost in focus anyway?).
Personally, I usually set a 2 or 5 second timer, Auto focus on my first foreground element, then hit the shutter and wait for the timer to begin the focus bracket. I have found that unless I have stopped down to F8 or higher, can't get any landscape scene entirely in focus in a single shot, especially using < 20mm and being close to a foreground element. So I'm usually at like F11, and doing multiple focus points until I have a background image that is acceptable. Thanks for watching!
Helicon Lite is $55 for a lifetime license. Helicon Pro with retouching is $200. Affinity Photo doing just as good a job AND Photoshop replace AND Astrophotography stacking AND better filters than photoshop (with Undo!) and... Now I know some focus stackers who use Helicon. It may be with other photos that software beats Affinity. Given that it is a specialized tool, this would not surprise me. Still, Affinity looks like the better deal most of the time.
Thanks for the take! Yea I think I agree with all that you said, does more, costs less, better value in Affinity photo overall. If I did a TON of macro photography, maybe Helicon is better, but I don't, so it will probably be where I go. Thanks again!
Nice insights. I do it manually in PS but it is taking a lot of time...😵
Thanks!
I usually do it by hand also, but not very possible with 7 images. Honestly I would rather let a computer do it, if it's better than a brush.
@lightmeetslens 👍
Thanks for sharing, very useful. 🙏
Glad you found it useful! Thanks for the watch!
Great focus stacking video, that helicon software is interesting. I might have to look into that. 😮
Yea! It did a very good job!
Apparently it has a very good plugin for Capture one, which might be a good replacement for Photoshop + Lightroom. Thanks for watching Jeff!
Great video, super useful im definitely going to give affinity photo a try. I dislike focus stacking in Photoshop so much that more often than not forgo stacking images at all and hope that the majority of the scene is in focus with a single shot!
Thanks Tim! Yea, for sure the bad experience of Photoshop has deterred me in the past.
Maybe this is obvious but When you actually take the Focus Bracket set, do you move your focus spot to closest item in scene, press AF-ON to lock focus then press and release shutter? Or do you hold the shutter down until finished. When I activate the shutter the camera appears to launch ahead and take the shots and ends before the Number of Shots I selected (reached infinity focus). This was using 12-24mm f2.8 GM at 12mm (could it be I did the right thing but with such a small scene and wide open at 2.8, everything is almost in focus anyway?).
Personally, I usually set a 2 or 5 second timer, Auto focus on my first foreground element, then hit the shutter and wait for the timer to begin the focus bracket. I have found that unless I have stopped down to F8 or higher, can't get any landscape scene entirely in focus in a single shot, especially using < 20mm and being close to a foreground element. So I'm usually at like F11, and doing multiple focus points until I have a background image that is acceptable. Thanks for watching!
Helicon Lite is $55 for a lifetime license. Helicon Pro with retouching is $200. Affinity Photo doing just as good a job AND Photoshop replace AND Astrophotography stacking AND better filters than photoshop (with Undo!) and...
Now I know some focus stackers who use Helicon. It may be with other photos that software beats Affinity. Given that it is a specialized tool, this would not surprise me. Still, Affinity looks like the better deal most of the time.
Thanks for the take! Yea I think I agree with all that you said, does more, costs less, better value in Affinity photo overall. If I did a TON of macro photography, maybe Helicon is better, but I don't, so it will probably be where I go. Thanks again!