The Way I Saw It

[Kris_Smith (Kristen M Smith)]

I have been using Zerene for years and though its interface is outdated (hello 1998!) it is excellent at what it does. There are two methods in there that Helicon also uses - basically Pyramid and Depth Map - they use different algorithms and search patterns I believe, to produce different results.

I find Pyramid or PMax to have better overlapping detail, but worse color rendering. PMax images also tend to have added noise and haloing around edges which is harder to correct for than DMap’s occasional flaws. What I usually do is change the contrast threshold and some other things to produce as clean a DMap as possible, then I use a PMax image to paint in details where needed. Usually I get a beautifully clean (non goopy) background this way. I use very wide apertures for my stacking for the same reason as you - I want nice smooth backgrounds.

We have an NPN discussion about stacking here -

Focus Stacking

Rather than continue to hijack Ann Louise’s Orange Petals thread with our stacking sidebar, I thought it might be polite to take it to a separate discussion. Our Weekly Challenge moderator, Mark Seaver, does a lot with stacking and has done some webinars for NPN on the subject, but I thought maybe a catch-all thread could be helpful no matter if you’re an experienced stacker, just starting or even only thinking about it. Since moving from a manual (legacy 35mm) macro lens to a system lens, I’v…

There are some Helicon and Zerene users there and a couple of links to webinars by Mark Seaver and a couple of articles I wrote about stacking. Feel free to chime in with your particular camera and process - everyone has something they can contribute if they’ve been stacking a while.