extension tube question

[DougFraser]

I need to know the inside diameter of the Canon 12mm extension tube. 

I want to use the extension tube between my 1.4X III teleconverter and my 100mm 2.8 L macro (which are otherwise non-compatible). I have read where people are using this combo successfully BUT the protruding portion of the converter will not fit inside my old set of Kenko extension tubes so I would like to know if it will fit with the Canon before buying the new extension tube.

I have the R5 and the focus stacking ability makes macro work even more fabulous so I want to take full advantage of the equipment I have.

[DougFraser]

That Helicon tube is quite the clever device! I think the R5 I should be able to what this device does but perhaps with less flexibility. I wish this had been available years ago. Anyway - I think the biggest hurdle with focus stacking for me is in image processing which I'm going to have learn much more about now that I hope to use stacking more frequently. I suppose there are a 100 youtube videos on how to use the software so that will keep me busy. 

[FloridaDrafter]

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@jrhoffman75 wrote:

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@DougFraser wrote:

Thanks! great info.

I don't suppose you have tried PS auto-align with auto-blend as a stacking option?

I have just got started with this R5 and do like the fact that it takes the photos for me and very rapidly compared to what I would have attempted by hand in the past. But as you note - Helicon remote is a better option upfront. But it sounds like it's not portable? Is it something you can do on a hike with wildflowers - ie can HR be put on a smartphone or must your camera be connected to your laptop? I have been fiddling around a little bit with DPP and it seems excruciatingly slow but I was asking it to stack 50 images. 
Beautiful photos by the way - how many images were stacked in those photos? 

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Helicon does have a device called the Focus Bracketing Tube (FBT). It interfaces with  a smartphone. You send contol information from the smartphone to the FBT and then the FBT controls lens focus as you shoot.

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I bought the FB Tube before getting the PC software but never could get it to work with my Samsung smart phone or my Android tablet. Helicons tech support was outstanding and we worked on getting it to work for several days. They eventually gave me a full refund.

What is appealing about the tube is that it will allow you to shoot in burst mode. The PC software will only shoot in one shot mode.

[FloridaDrafter]

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@DougFraser wrote:

Thanks! great info.

I don't suppose you have tried PS auto-align with auto-blend as a stacking option?

I have just got started with this R5 and do like the fact that it takes the photos for me and very rapidly compared to what I would have attempted by hand in the past. But as you note - Helicon remote is a better option upfront. But it sounds like it's not portable? Is it something you can do on a hike with wildflowers - ie can HR be put on a smartphone or must your camera be connected to your laptop? I have been fiddling around a little bit with DPP and it seems excruciatingly slow but I was asking it to stack 50 images. 
Beautiful photos by the way - how many images were stacked in those photos? 

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I stopped using PS at v.6, so all I've seen are tutorials on the subject. But from what I could tell, you have the same issues and it seemed, IIRC, there is more time spent setting up layers, aligning, and brushing the bad spots. However, there is no way of knowing the experience of the person making the demo. I've watched some painfully inept demos, LOL!

Helicon supports Android, iOS, Mac OS, and Windows. I've never tried the portable versions but I did try out the FB Tube (more on that later). They have a forum, so you can get an idea of the problems some people have.

Thank you for the compliment 🙂 The first image is a 19 shot stack and the second is a 15 shot stack. Both started life as Raw and edited in DPP 4. The shots from the 5D IV were processed as Raw and the 7D II shots were converted to JPeG, then ran through DPP 4's DC tool.

[DougFraser]

Thanks for the info - I don't know much about stacking software at all. So when you use Helicon you normally would not have to use DPP at all other than "routine" processing correct? But here you said for these two images you did use the DPP DC tool so did you not use Helicon for them? Sorry if I'm missing something. I assume Helicon Remote is strictly for controlling the shooting.

R5 raw images are in a format that at first could not be recognized by LR and PS but that changed rapidly so not an issue now and Faststone can view them as well but I wonder if that is the case with Helicon? I'm hoping to be able to use LR and PS for stacking because I have the entire Adobe suite anyway so hopefully I can make good use of it. 

It's nice to know you don't need large numbers of images to get an excellent final product. The R5 can be set to take hundreds of images in a single focus bracketing sequence and, at 45M each, that would be a great deal of data to process lol  

[FloridaDrafter]

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@DougFraser wrote:

Thanks for the info - I don't know much about stacking software at all. So when you use Helicon you normally would not have to use DPP at all other than "routine" processing correct? But here you said for these two images you did use the DPP DC tool so did you not use Helicon for them? Sorry if I'm missing something. I assume Helicon Remote is strictly for controlling the shooting.

R5 raw images are in a format that at first could not be recognized by LR and PS but that changed rapidly so not an issue now and Faststone can view them as well but I wonder if that is the case with Helicon? I'm hoping to be able to use LR and PS for stacking because I have the entire Adobe suite anyway so hopefully I can make good use of it. 

It's nice to know you don't need large numbers of images to get an excellent final product. The R5 can be set to take hundreds of images in a single focus bracketing sequence and, at 45M each, that would be a great deal of data to process lol  

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Helicon Soft sells Helicon Remote and Helicon Focus (I bought a lifetime subscription). HR just gets the shots, then will prompt you to open HF for processing (y/n). Your Raw files stay on your camera regardless of whether you select yes or no. If yes, then the stack is copied to your computer and HF opens for editing the stack. For these examples, I just let HR take the shots then stacked them in DPP 4. Keep in mind that the images I posted were just demos to see what DPP could do. HF isn't real complicated but there is a bit of a learning curve because there are multiple methods that can be selected and each has settings unique to that method: Weighted Average; Depth Map; and Pyramid. I get the best results using the Depth Map method. If you aren't familiar with Depth Mapping, it's what is used to make these 3D images that are so popular with the iPhones. HF will also produce a rendered 3D image and make it a video to boot. I think there is a PS/LR plugin available for HF, but I have never tried it.

[DougFraser]

Thanks for the details re Helicon. So did you think the DPP rendering of that first photo was reasonable compared to your end result had you used Helicon? It certainly looks very good to me but I don't know what you might be comparing to 🙂 

I'm hoping DPP and or LR/PS are capable of everything I need simply because I have them already (although I don't use PS much). I would hope that with Adobe's massive market they will put enough into the PS stacking ability to satisfy me. I'm not doing anything professionally here 🙂

[FloridaDrafter]

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@DougFraser wrote:

Thanks for the details re Helicon. So did you think the DPP rendering of that first photo was reasonable compared to your end result had you used Helicon? It certainly looks very good to me but I don't know what you might be comparing to 🙂 

I'm hoping DPP and or LR/PS are capable of everything I need simply because I have them already (although I don't use PS much). I would hope that with Adobe's massive market they will put enough into the PS stacking ability to satisfy me. I'm not doing anything professionally here 🙂

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WOW! This came a long way from extention tubes, LOL. But that's why we chat and share knowledge 🙂

Really, the only down side to DPP, as far as focus stacking goes, is the touchup portion. It's just a little clunky compared to HF and I never could get some of them corrected (see attached photo). That may be remedied with the R5 and setting the number of shots a little higher than you would normally need. Once again, I just like the idea of setting point A, point B, aperture, then letting the software figure out just how many shots I need to cover that area. Yes, I'm leaving stuff out, like ISO and shutter speed, but you get the idea. When using HR, you just put your camera in manual, leave your lens to AF, and adjust settings by the way the image looks on your computer, just like in the EOS Utility. Please keep in mind that I've udated DPP 4 at least three times since I fiddled with its focus stacking, so they may have fixed some of my gripes.

DPP has served me well for other uses and, besides cropping and framing, it's all I use. I'm retired, but do sell some of my bird photos and donate some to the local Audubon Society. Macro is a passionate hobby 😉

The image I posted earlier was cropped from this photo or a similar one, I just don't remember (Hey, I'm old, LOL). This 19 shot stack covered about three inches. ISO 320, shutter 1/125, f/3.5. I only got one chance at this plant. It's a Dracaena Surculosa and is pollenated by moths, which means it blooms at night, one night only. That's why this shot is just the buds (it bloomed later that night). This particular plant has only bloomed twice in the 30 years we've had it, in fact, the last shots we took of it blooming were with an EOS AE-1 Program 35mm film camera and Canon 50mm macro lens.

[jrhoffman75]

Helicon Focus has a 30 day trial period with full capability.

[FloridaDrafter]

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@jrhoffman75 wrote:

Helicon Focus has a 30 day trial period with full capability.

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I totally forgot to mention that.

Back when I bought it, I did the 30 day thing beforehand and, at that time, the software would only do jpg during the 30 day trial (it still might be that way). Well, there was a bug in it and it set my camera from Raw to jpg for the trial and didn't set it back to Raw after the stack was shot. So, here I go, off to shoot some birdies and came home with a card full of jpegs. I was a little miffed, but whatcha gonna do? I should have been paying closer attention, but just didn't notice that it was set to jpg. I let them know on the forum and they acknowledged the bug 🙂

[DougFraser]

Well I gave DPP and LR/PS a try - as a total novice. Somewhat surprisingly the final images (of urchins) looked almost identical! And I was quite happy with them - although brutally slow. Look at the urchin image below and let me know what you think - I took them off the shelf to photograph and the dust and cat hair is a bit offensive up close haha. I then just tried the orchid stack with DPP and there is definitely some ghosting and unsharp regions but overall still acceptable if not being enlarged a great deal.

Question - do you do any "batch" processing of all the raw images BEFORE running the stacking program? I normally use LR to process all my raw files and then export as jpegs but here I have run DPP and LR/PS without doing any preliminary processing so I then did a few adjustments to the jpeg in LR after the fact.   

Here are the DPP results for the urchins and the orchid