Sony A7R II – my first disappointment
I was doing an attempt at an ImageBrief brief recently – one about perfectly shaped water drops on a piece of polished wood – and came across the first area where my Canon kit was much better than the Sony A7R! Macro focus stacking. The picture I was attempting needed high definition focus from front to rear:
Focus Stacked image from about 20 photos
It took me a bit of time to sort out the lighting (which needed to be low and behind the drops to get definition and shadows), but after trying this on my wooden floor, I decided to move to my studio and tie the Sony into my PC running Helicon Focus and using Helicon remote to automatically control the focus and step through all the necessary focus steps to get the full image sharp and detailed.
This is where the problem comes – Helicon Remote only controls Canon and Nikon cameras and a search around the internet suggests this is because Sony don’t expose any controls of focus via the USB connection, so nothing external can manage this process. Big disappointment for me. I don’t do enough of this to make this a big issue, but if you were a keen macro photographer, it could play into a purchase decision.
I tried putting the camera and macro lens on my tripod and slowly turning the focus by hand, but that was far too coarse and each time you touch the lens you are in danger of moving the tripod, so that didn’t work. Finally, I fell back on a piece of kit I haven’t used for a time – my Velbon Super Mag Slider which I reviewed way back in 2011! Luckily, it worked and I was able to use the slider to slowly move the camera through the subject getting focus from front to back (one small twist of the control knob per image) and I used a remote control and the camera 2 second timer to make sure any small vibrations had stopped before the shutter was triggered. As this was using an LED light, I had an exposure of about 0.5 seconds for each shot at F10, but each shot was nicely in focus and Helicon Focus did a great job of stacking the images to create the final image. Lets hope that the client likes my shot!
The Velbon Super Mag macro slider is still available so if you are grappling with this issue, please check it out at Amazon:
I do a lot of photo stacking for work. We use Automontage and a microscope attached to a camera. I only have to set the upper focus, lower focus, and tell the program, how many photos should be taken in between. It is all automated and works very well. I mostly take pictures of insects and insect parts (for work).
Wishing you bests with the client!