The toy has been sitting on the shelf since then.
Before I get into the toy, I thought a look into what I am now calling the dungeon. I've set aside a corner in our basement for my photographic equipment. I have two tables set up - one has the mat cutting equipment and the other is the table top studio.
So far, the single lighting source into the umbrella is doing the trick. I have been very happy with the results. That tip alone was well worth the gas money to Procam and back.
On to the helicopter.
The goal was to test the Helicon Remote (PC) and Focus programs with something other than the default settings.
Over the course of the day, I found out a few things that sound like I should have known them before today, but like most things I have learned I needed to see it for myself.
The first thing I figured out, is don't be so fast to jump to a RAW format. As RAW files are larger, guess what? Yep - they take longer to process. That probably cost me a hour. Lesson learned, unless there is a reason for RAW format or you are just testing go with a medium JPG format.
Another lesson, it appears that the smaller f/stop (larger opening) doesn't always mean a clearer product. i found in the course of the shooting that for some reason, the tail section would never come out clear when I was shooting f/2. Not sure if it was the complexity of the section, or the backdrop or a combination of the two. I would see clear shots in the stack, but in the processing it never came out. I'm sure there is a way to clean that up, but that is time I'd rather not take. When I shot a stack at f/4.5 and f/8 the tail section came in very nicely. Lesson learned, if you have the time take multiple sets with different aperture settings. I believe it can make a difference.
Next lesson, complex subjects can be frustrating. I'll define complex as having multiple points of focus that overlap. In this case, I spent a lot of time moving the rotor blades so they didn't overlap the body. The more independent each element, the better. It took me a while to get this straight, and coupled with the RAW image lesson, there was a lot of time consumed. Lesson learned, practice, practice, practice. Note: I always go back to my first stacking adventure, the DMRRC shoot. These were not so much complex shots, for the most part the scenery was uncomplicated. There was depth, but none of it was overlapping.
And probably the last lesson for the day, when it comes to rendering the photos there is always room for improvement. In this case, methods A and B worked best when the radius and smoothing values were set to 1. And while that was fun trying to figure those settings - option C worked the best with no extra effort. The Helicon vendor website said that most of the default settings would work most of the time. Don't believe it - explore.
So on to the Helicopter, again.
Using two different DOF web calculators with the following: Camera D7200 crop sensor, distance to subject of 24 inches with 50 mm lens set to f/8 gives me a DOF of just under 2 inches. The helicopter is 7 inches long, plus maybe 2.5 inches for the front rotor blade. Something isn't going to fit.
This is one of the mid-photos in the stack where the focus is just forward of the rotor.
The front looks OK, but from roughly half way back on the tail the sharpness is fading.
With a 16 shot photostack, this is the image:
And a close up of the tail section:
The tail section is sharp all the way through.
So that is the stack part - done in JPG.
And the Blog version:
As this project was done in JPG, I'm stuck with the coloring of the backdrop and soften the object shadow a bit. Still in the learning process.
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