[DanC.Licks]

Haven't tried yet with the SW 80/600, but here is one done with a 200mm Olympus + 2x TC. 4 Shots.

Stacking is also a possibility. Here are two SW/Oly E-30 shots taken within 1/3 sec and stacked with CombineZ. The result is much less noisy than either of the single shots.

[cango]

Originally Posted by DanC.Licks

Stacking is also a possibility.

well that must be really hard - any movement between the shots and it's ruined, right? Well done :-)

[DanC.Licks]

He was very cooperative
I would think that would work well with the OM-D; no mirror flap. You can also focus stack with the same (free) program, that is, slightly adjust the focus while shooting a burst. Greatly increases the dof.

[Tord]

Originally Posted by cango

Nice!

You can do panoramabirds as well ;-) (when they not fit into the frame)
(made of two frames only. you can see the stiching. did not thought it could work)

Well, if you had not told it was stitched I would not have noticed in the first place. The only thing that draws attantion is that the "bend" in the neck look strange (but sometimes birds are captured in odd postures)

[Tord]

Originally Posted by DanC.Licks

Haven't tried yet with the SW 80/600, but here is one done with a 200mm Olympus + 2x TC. 4 Shots.
Attachment 443881
Stacking is also a possibility. Here are two SW/Oly E-30 shots taken within 1/3 sec and stacked with CombineZ. The result is much less noisy than either of the single shots.
Attachment 443879

The stitching is impossible to detect, at least not on the copy you uploaded with web resolution.

I am curious about the stacking. Is the purpose mainly to reduce noise? Are both frames taken using same settings, or is any bracketing (exposure) involved?

[Tord]

Originally Posted by DanC.Licks

He was very cooperative
I would think that would work well with the OM-D; no mirror flap. You can also focus stack with the same (free) program, that is, slightly adjust the focus while shooting a burst. Greatly increases the dof.

Then I suppose the scope must be firmly locked and vibrations totally eliminated.

[JGobeil]

Originally Posted by cango

Nice!

You can do panoramabirds as well ;-) (when they not fit into the frame)
(made of two frames only. you can see the stiching. did not thought it could work)

Originally Posted by DanC.Licks

Stacking is also a possibility. Here are two SW/Oly E-30 shots taken within 1/3 sec and stacked with CombineZ. The result is much less noisy than either of the single shots.
Attachment 443879

This is too much ! Nice !

[DanC.Licks]

Stacking: It is an astro trick; how to make one good picture out of many, sometimes hundreds, of bad ones. In this case, neither of the shots was that bad, but at ISO 800 the E-30 is already getting a bit noisy, and the stack of the two is a bit better than the single shots. The camera does not need to be locked down, but if the subject moves it is a problem. Basically, all the program does is compare each successive frame with the last on a pixel to pixel level and select the sharpest, i.e. highest pixel to pixel contrast.
Focus stacking works the same way. Here is a macro I did a couple of years ago of some tiny drops of condensation on my window. The area of the shot is less than one cm². A single shot would allow only one plane to be sharp, so if the drops are sharp, the image projected by them would not be, and vice versa. This is a stack of maybe 10 frames, can't remember exactly. For macro work, the camera MUST be solidly locked down.

The tele-pano was done with AutopanoPro. Shots were hand held.

[rferrieri]

Very nice Dan. I am intrigued by the possibilities of image stacking using CombineZ, but more for increasing DOF. To me this is a real limitation when using the astroscope for photographing several birds in the same frame especially at say 30 ft where the DOF is really shallow--maybe a couple of inches. I am hoping with the CF card on my camera I can fire off several raw pictures in fast sequence while quickly changing the focus. I will have to experiment with the coarse focus versus fine focus adjustment knobs to see what works best with this technique.

[rferrieri]

Dan--an after thought to my previous response. Actually I can see an advantage to using the CombineZP for stacking and noise reduction. On my Olympus e-510 I would never consider shooting at iso 1600 or even iso 800 for that matter because of the noise level, but if I am going to go to the trouble to focus stack a set of 3-5 images I can take advantage of the higher iso level and drop my shutter speed to something like 1/1200 sec. What I have to determine now is in the burst mode on my camera or other DSLR cameras does the mirror stay in the locked up position?

[DanC.Licks]

On a DSLR the mirror will not stay up, as far as I know. But that shouldn't be a factor, though the mirrorless jobbies are for sure at an advantage here. I have also thought about using a burst and focusing at the same time. Should be ok as long as the shutter speed is relatively high. Have to experiment; that is the only way to find out. I would guess that the fine knob would work best, but I haven't tried it yet.
I seldom shot with my 510 above ISO 400, but at times at 800+ and having to rely on pretty heavy NR.
Here are two old test shots with the E-510 at ISO 1600



So it can be done....with care.
Test, test, test.....time consuming, but it is the best was to learn.

[rferrieri]

Dan

I was thinking to try to adapt a motorized focus knob onto my dual speed focuser. There are several companies that sell these units with slow (fine focus) and fast (coarse focus) control. Ideally I would like to manually set focus to some object in the foreground and allow the focuser to slew through a couple of degrees turn of the fine focuser knob. Coordination for energizing the servo motor with tripping the electronic shutter will be the trick here. One possibility is to tap the TTL contact in the hot shoe as the triggering signal. Some kind of circuit would have to be built to accomplish this.

As you say--for now I will need to play with the CombineZP software and attempting to manually focus through the focal planes. If I decide to purchase a commercial focuser servo motor I will see if I can remotely slew through focus using one hand while triggering the shutter with the remote in the other. Likely a hit or miss scenario with more misses than I would like.

[DanC.Licks]

You learn through the misses. I would try to keep it simple, but if you manage the motorized thing, hats off!
We are off for two weeks. Good luck!