Robber Fly

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

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Sulafat
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Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2019 3:31 pm
Location: Tallahassee, FL, USA
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Robber Fly

Post by Sulafat »

Here are a few photos of a robber fly I took recently; I believe it may be a mallophora sp. I used Helicon Focus 7 (method B) for the head and quarter shots. I tried out Zerene (pyramid method) on the profile shot. I find the color balance much nicer from Helicon. However, there are so many stacking artifacts to deal with. It seemed to me that Zerene came out much cleaner with fewer artifacts, though it seemed flat. I could perk it up in post processing, but I try to minimize my manipulations with photoshop. Anyhow, does anyone have any objective comments on which stacking s/w generally works the best for insects, particularly hairy ones like robber flies. I suspect this type of topic has been debated, so if you could point me to the topic conversation, much obliged. Thanks.

Greg Brown

Head: https://flic.kr/p/2hrbHgy
Quarter: https://flic.kr/p/2hrd9bv
Profile: https://flic.kr/p/2hqCGus
Flickr page: https://flic.kr/ps/3eJvz5

I'm an amateur photographer in the gentle persuit of modest competency.

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

For hairy subjects, you need one of the "pyramid" methods, like Zerene Stacker PMax or Helicon Focus Method C.

One downside of the pyramid methods is that they don't preserve color and noise levels as well as the depth map methods do. On the other hand the pyramid methods do a better job of handling complex geometry, which is why they work better with hairy subjects.

In Zerene Stacker, you may get better color by putting a checkmark on Options > Preferences > PMax Options > "Use All Color Channels In Decisions".

One useful technique with many subjects is to use retouching to combine the best bits of two outputs: one from a pyramid method and one from a depth map method. The first video tutorial "Introduction to Retouching" in Zerene Stacker covers the basic of this. See the Tutorials index page at https://zerenesystems.com/cms/stacker/d ... rialsindex .

--Rik (the fellow who wrote Zerene Stacker)

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