These all used 6K post focus.
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Tuesday, 26 February 2019
Panasonic G9 - 2018 onwards
I liked the G9 right from the outset. It almost instantly became my favoured camera for botanical scenes, used with the Olympus 60mm macro. A development that surprised me was that I quickly found myself using post focus for stacking almost all the time. The G9 can use post focus with 6K video, which produces 18 megapixel images rather than the 8 megapixel 4K images produced by the G80 and FZ330. Also, the rendition of colours, textures and detail seemed very pleasing. (This is discussed in more detail in a later post.)
I have not been using the G9 long, and with it being winter there have not been a lot of botanical subjects to photograph. Nonetheless I have been very pleased with the results I have been getting. I am also less troubled than I was by stacking imperfections. I think this is partly because I have gained enough experience with Helicon Focus (which has been updated in a couple of useful ways) to know how to work around some of the problems. Partly however I think it is that I have accepted that there will be imperfections but I still often prefer slightly flawed stacks to what I could achieve with single images, which have different sorts of imperfections, particularly to do with the balance between focus coverage for the subject and nice renditions of backgrounds, but also to do with noise and/or sharpness in poor light.
I have not been using the G9 long, and with it being winter there have not been a lot of botanical subjects to photograph. Nonetheless I have been very pleased with the results I have been getting. I am also less troubled than I was by stacking imperfections. I think this is partly because I have gained enough experience with Helicon Focus (which has been updated in a couple of useful ways) to know how to work around some of the problems. Partly however I think it is that I have accepted that there will be imperfections but I still often prefer slightly flawed stacks to what I could achieve with single images, which have different sorts of imperfections, particularly to do with the balance between focus coverage for the subject and nice renditions of backgrounds, but also to do with noise and/or sharpness in poor light.
Sony A7ii - 2018 onwards
In October 2018 I wandered in to a camera shop while waiting for my wife at the mall and handled a Sony A7ii full frame camera. I had been wondering for a while whether for botanical scenes a full frame camera would give me better colours and textures and handle difficult light better. There was a very good cashback offer and after thinking about it and discussing with my wife I decided to take the plunge into the full frame world. Rather than buying lenses I bought an adapter that would let me use my Canon EF fit lenses, which included the Sigma 105 Macro, which is what I would use to explore botanical subject matter with the A7ii.
I did two series of like for like botanical comparisons between the A7ii with the 105mm macro and the G80 with 60mm macro. These are written up and discussed in this thread and this thread at dpreview.com. I was disappointed to find no advantage to using the A7ii. There were however some disadvantages - with the 105mm macro the A7ii was heavy and awkward to use, and it did not do aperture bracketing, focus bracketing or post focus. As far as botanical subjects were concerned it seemed that full frame was not the way forward for me. So, instead of spending a lot more money on two or three native lenses for the A7ii as I had envisaged I decided that the only way forward I could see which might improve my botanical images was to move to a top of the range micro four thirds camera. Given my desire to have post focus available, that meant a Panasonic G9, which I bought only a month after buying the A7ii.
I bought several legacy lenses to try on the A7ii. I had discovered that legacy lenses were popular with some Sony-using landscape photographers and thought they might be an inexpensive way to try out the A7ii for cloudscapes and sunsets over the estuary. They were indeed inexpensive, but I did not get on well with them, for example experiencing a lot of flare. By early 2019 I had not done thorough tests but I had strong indications that the A7ii would be better for cloudscapes and, especially, sunsets over the estuary, with better handling of pre-sunset high dynamic range scenes and post-sunset low light scenes. In early 2109 I bought a Sony 24-240 lens to use with the A7ii for this type of scene.
At this point I have no examples of images that appeal to me from the A7ii.
I did two series of like for like botanical comparisons between the A7ii with the 105mm macro and the G80 with 60mm macro. These are written up and discussed in this thread and this thread at dpreview.com. I was disappointed to find no advantage to using the A7ii. There were however some disadvantages - with the 105mm macro the A7ii was heavy and awkward to use, and it did not do aperture bracketing, focus bracketing or post focus. As far as botanical subjects were concerned it seemed that full frame was not the way forward for me. So, instead of spending a lot more money on two or three native lenses for the A7ii as I had envisaged I decided that the only way forward I could see which might improve my botanical images was to move to a top of the range micro four thirds camera. Given my desire to have post focus available, that meant a Panasonic G9, which I bought only a month after buying the A7ii.
I bought several legacy lenses to try on the A7ii. I had discovered that legacy lenses were popular with some Sony-using landscape photographers and thought they might be an inexpensive way to try out the A7ii for cloudscapes and sunsets over the estuary. They were indeed inexpensive, but I did not get on well with them, for example experiencing a lot of flare. By early 2019 I had not done thorough tests but I had strong indications that the A7ii would be better for cloudscapes and, especially, sunsets over the estuary, with better handling of pre-sunset high dynamic range scenes and post-sunset low light scenes. In early 2109 I bought a Sony 24-240 lens to use with the A7ii for this type of scene.
At this point I have no examples of images that appeal to me from the A7ii.
Panasonic G80 - Other subjects
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A stack of 34 focus bracketed images.
A stack of 92 focus bracketed images.
A stack of 201 frames from a post focus video. Probably hand-held with a hand resting on a very low wall.
A stack of 87 focus bracketed images. The inside of a paperweight.
The Severn Bridge and Aust Severn Powerline Crossing.
The Second Severn Crossing.
Electrical infrastructure near the Severn Estuary.
Windsurfer at Weston Super Mare on Christmas Eve.
Common birds in flight at the little local boating lake.
Panasonic G80 - Invertebrates
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Next one, aphid giving birth.
Panasonic G80 - Botanical subjects
The first of these is a stack of 29 images. The rest are single shots.
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G80 - Mainly 2017 to 2018
In mid 2017 I bought a Panasonic G80 as an upgrade to the G5. For the most part it was a mild upgrade with various incremental improvements, but it had two new functions that were to prove important as time went on: it could do aperture bracketing; and it could do focus bracketing and post focus video, both of which could be used to derive images for stacking. I used both of these new features for botanical subjects.
For invertebrates, as with the G5, I mixed use of the G80 with use of the FZ330 for invertebrates, in both cases using close-up lenses, and not using a macro lens on the G80 for invertebrates. (The reasons why I didn't use a macro lens are covered in more detail in a later post.) At this point I think I was using the Canon 70D less and less, and probably not at all, for invertebrates.
The FZ330, which I had bought 9 months prior to getting the G80, was also able to do post focus but I only used it for a handful of experimental stacks. Some of the results were pleasing, but the stacking presented too many problems for it to be attractive.
Unlike the FZ330, the G80 did in-camera focus stacking. I soon discovered that this was flawed for my purposes, producing grossly unusable results some of the time and, for those that did work, not providing as much flexibility as an external application such as Helicon Focus or Zerene Stacker.
I produced some stacking results for botanical subjects with the G80 that I liked, using both focus stacking and post focus, but I found I preferred post focus. (The reasons why are covered in more detail in a later post.) However, my use of stacking was intermittent. I was getting better with Helicon Focus, which I preferred to Zerene Stacker, but still encountering enough problems with the stacking to discourage my use of it more than occasionally. It seemed like rather hard work. And it produced results that if I looked closely had flaws that didn't trouble me too much but made me hesitant to show them to other people, which in turn made me doubt whether I should really like these flawed images.
Instead of stacking with the G80 for botanical subjects I started using aperture bracketing. This let me capture a set of images from f/2.8 to f/22 with a single shutter press. I could then choose which one I preferred the look of later while doing the post processing. I found this gave me better results more often, easier and faster, than I could with single shots. I soon started to use aperture bracketing most of the time for botanical subjects. This worked best with the Olympus 60mm macro, and the combination of G80, 60mm macro and aperture bracketing quickly took over from the Canon 70D as my favoured setup for botanical scenes. Since then I have only used the 70D for common birds in flight.
As with the 70D and the FZ cameras I used the G80 for some other subjects occasionally, but as with them I was not convinced it produced better results than the cameras I normally used for those subjects.
For invertebrates, as with the G5, I mixed use of the G80 with use of the FZ330 for invertebrates, in both cases using close-up lenses, and not using a macro lens on the G80 for invertebrates. (The reasons why I didn't use a macro lens are covered in more detail in a later post.) At this point I think I was using the Canon 70D less and less, and probably not at all, for invertebrates.
The FZ330, which I had bought 9 months prior to getting the G80, was also able to do post focus but I only used it for a handful of experimental stacks. Some of the results were pleasing, but the stacking presented too many problems for it to be attractive.
Unlike the FZ330, the G80 did in-camera focus stacking. I soon discovered that this was flawed for my purposes, producing grossly unusable results some of the time and, for those that did work, not providing as much flexibility as an external application such as Helicon Focus or Zerene Stacker.
I produced some stacking results for botanical subjects with the G80 that I liked, using both focus stacking and post focus, but I found I preferred post focus. (The reasons why are covered in more detail in a later post.) However, my use of stacking was intermittent. I was getting better with Helicon Focus, which I preferred to Zerene Stacker, but still encountering enough problems with the stacking to discourage my use of it more than occasionally. It seemed like rather hard work. And it produced results that if I looked closely had flaws that didn't trouble me too much but made me hesitant to show them to other people, which in turn made me doubt whether I should really like these flawed images.
Instead of stacking with the G80 for botanical subjects I started using aperture bracketing. This let me capture a set of images from f/2.8 to f/22 with a single shutter press. I could then choose which one I preferred the look of later while doing the post processing. I found this gave me better results more often, easier and faster, than I could with single shots. I soon started to use aperture bracketing most of the time for botanical subjects. This worked best with the Olympus 60mm macro, and the combination of G80, 60mm macro and aperture bracketing quickly took over from the Canon 70D as my favoured setup for botanical scenes. Since then I have only used the 70D for common birds in flight.
As with the 70D and the FZ cameras I used the G80 for some other subjects occasionally, but as with them I was not convinced it produced better results than the cameras I normally used for those subjects.
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