Helicon - does anyone use it for stacking

[rawill]

I have been reading about stacking for a little while.
Today I found out what it is, so I downloaded Helicon.

Does anyone on here use it, or rate it as a stacking programme.

[nimitzbenedicto]

I have been reading about stacking for a little while.
Today I found out what it is, so I downloaded Helicon.

Does anyone on here use it, or rate it as a stacking programme.

HI Robin,

I use Helicon Filter 5 mostly for editing images ( RAW & JPG). It's great and easy to use.
Haven't tried its stacking features. (or does it have it? )

[rawill]

It is Helicon focus 5.3.

I only stumbled across it this morning, I got out my very little tripod, put my 50mm Series E Nikon lens and gave it a go.

I was amazed, it worked!!

I was so surprised, I took 4 photos and stacked them, each individual photo was out of focus somewhere but the stacked version was all in focus.

Many thanks

[Glenn NK]

At first, I was going to get Helicon, and DL'd the trial version.

I had a question, so I e-mailed it off (as the advertising suggested one could do).

I received no response for four or five days, and the reply wasn't much help.

Then I DL'd and tried Zerene; I had the same questions, and sent them to the Zerene developer.

The answer came back very quickly.

From this, I decided that the Zerene support was better and bought Zerene Stacker.

Other people's mileage may vary.

Glenn

[rawill]

Thank you for the feedback

[rawill]

I also found CombineZP, but it does not look as user friendly as Helicon.

However, this morning I tried another shot of two.
With Helicon I could not find the alignment command,
In Combine it is easy to find.

I made a stack with Helicon and it had a slight double image.
With CombineZP, I aligned it and stacked it and it came out well.

I might post them up to get some advice.

[rawill]

Just thought I would upload a couple of photos to this thread.

One is stacked by Helicon, the other was aligned and stacked by Combine.
Is there another function in Helicon that aligns like Combine.






I know neither are great, the originals were taken free standing, I don't have a tripod yet, should be here on Monday!

But the Combine stacked photo seems better to me, more aligned.

[pnodrog]

Stacking has been around for years but in the days of film it seemed to be mainly confined to what I thought were slightly eccentric and very dedicated macro photographers. But I am thinking of giving it a try and am following this and other similar threads with great interest.


Robin I will wait until you have experimented using your new tripod. The Combine photo looks better at this stage for the central flowers but the leaves on the edges looks as if there is a slight camera rotation between some of the shots. When you have sorted it all out let us know.

[rawill]

Paul, You are absolutely right with your comment on the leaves on the Combine leaf edges.

However, the point I am making was the ability of Combine to align the photos, If you saw how different the originals were you'd be amazed that the final result could get as close as it did.

I was simply standing in front of the flowers holding my camera and adjusting the focus manually!