Helicon Focus - a quick try
 

This is a brief look at Helicon Focus for anyone who might be interested.

The Helicon Focus software application creates an image with enhanced depth of field by combining multiple images of the same subject, each with a slightly different plane of focus.

Or to quote the makers: "HeliconFocus is a program that creates one completely focused image from several partially focused images by combining the focused areas."

I downloaded the Windows version which has a 30 day free trial period and took it for a spin.

This evening I drove to a local nature reserve and took some photographs of a Clustered Bellflower. Normally I would photograph this at F16 to keep the flower in focus, but this would result in a messy background, which to my eye is rather ugly. So this time I used an aperture of F5.6 to creating a nice smooth out of focus background. I took four photos, the first focussed on the front of the flower, moving the plane of focus backwards a bit between each photograph.

Once I got back home I launched Helicon Focus, selected the four NEF files, and pressed the Run button. Five minutes later out popped the result, which I saved as a 16 bit TIFF file. Yes, it works in 16 bits! And yes it can work with Nikon RAW files without the need to use Nikon Capture. What's more, it seems to do an excellent job of RAW conversion, with accurate colours. So full marks to the makers.

I've attached two photos. The first image is the second one from the series, showing the flower photographed at F5.6. It has a nice smooth background, due to the large aperture, but very little of the flower is in focus. The second image is the combined image created by Helicon Focus. It also has a nice smooth background, but this time most of the flower is in focus. Looking at the original file at 100% I can see that I could have got better results by taking more photographs in the series. However, I think that HF has done an excellent job, and I look forward to using it on more interesting subjects, especially small insects.

I realise that this is a very brief test, but I hope it has given an indication of what it does. I hope to carry out more tests, to see if there are any serious shortcomings. If anyone else does there own tests, then please let me know what you think of it.

Here is the Helicon Focus web site:

http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconfocus.html

The tool costs about £60 for the basic version, which seems more than reasonable to me.

Here are some alternative comments on the application:

http://www.gpmatthews.nildram.co.uk/.../scalesnf.html
http://www.hoothollow.com/Tip-July%2...iconFocus.html

Incidentally, the McDonalds are very respected professional nature photographers.

Impressed by the results Leif. :cool:

Somewhere on the forum is a picture that Harry ( Wolfie ) posted using this technique. I was impressed then as I am now. The fact that it will work with RAW files is interesting.

Thanks for posting your efforts on this.

Don

In case anyone is interested, I tried it on various images, and found that it was prone to artifacting. Take a look at the McDonalds article, and look at the bookshelf image. Unless I am mistaken it shows artifacting in the form of a halo around an object in the distance.

I did find an interesting article on compositing multiple images to maximise DOF:

http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/sho...hlight=helicon

Harry S. also indicates that Helicon Focus introduces artifacts. Anyway, he is clearly a very experienced and capable person, and I recommend anyone interested in this area read his posting. I would not presume to add to it (mainly because I can't ...)

Great link Leif, thanks for that. :cool:

I will have to investigate tuning my milling table into a super precision focusing rail. :rolleyes: I have had a go at manually combining images in CS ( moon shots ), so hopefully I can give it a go.

Lots to think about. :)

Don

I recommend a photo back pack for your milling table. The holster case would be too tight a fit. :) I guess that would be for collected specimens?

:D :D :D

I have the guys web page up and the beetles are under controlled conditions that I would hope to be able to replicate. I can control the camera via the laptop to confirm initial point of focus and how many thou of focus movement per frame taken will be required. Just got to find a suitable subject.

Live and in the wild as per your stunners are a quite different matter. Lots more skill required to achieve that.

Don

I have not got round to giving this a go yet, but have thought about combining the images and are my CS skills which are limited up to it. The prime thought being that as focus is moved so image size would alter. A bit of back up thinking and a net trawl brought me to Combine Z5 ( a freebe ) which I have now downloaded and printed the help file for.

Rainy days forecast so a bit of machining to make a camera mount for the milling table ( my focussing stage ) then I hope to give it a go.

Here is a link to Digital Outback Photo Review of Helicon Focus and CombineZ5 software. Seems to be one of those occasions when its good to be on PC. :)

http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_72/essay.html

Don

Just one point to mention Combine is freeware and very good, but it's now been updated to CombineZM with some interesting additions. Download from http://www.hadleyweb.pwp.blueyonder..../combinezm.htm

Harry

I kind of remember your post of a pic using this Harry, and thats why I went looking.

Perhaps its worth putting it here.

I downloaded CombineZM

Don

Don, Combine is far to complicated for me, so I just use the "Do Stack" Actually I do play around with the other setting, but I really have no idea as to what I'm doing :)

Will sort out a more recent stacked photo and upload it tomorrow, but until then here's the one from my gallery.
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...372&ppuser=150