Pete Askew
Admin
Today I decided I needed to get to grips with a bit of kit I bought a while back for work. And, to make it a bit more interesting I used the skull of a Magpie as the subject! Here is the final, test image.
It is a composite made by focus stacking 50 images taken at 50 focal points, each 1 mm apart. Now, as you can imagine, this is a tedious business when done by hand, and prone to quite a bit of error. However, it can be automated and in this case the automation was achieved using a piece of equipment from the company Cognisys called a Stackshot. It is comprised of a camera support on a guide rail driven by a stepper motor connected to a controller that automates shoot / move sequences. Here is the setup:
You can see the Stackshot mounted on the Devere copy stand and on it is mounted a Nikon D3s + 55mm Micro Nikkor (I also have an interface cable to allow connection to our D800 / D800E). The skull is sitting on the black background and is angled up towards the camera). Image stacking was performed using Helicon Focus although the unit can interface with Zyrene Stacker as well. After stacking, the composite image was imported into LR for cropping and minor adjustment (cleaning up of specks on the background and the removal of the odd artefact etc).
Details of the unit can be found at:
https://www.cognisys-inc.com/products/stackshot/stackshot.php
I also have a second stepper motor that can be controlled by the unit and the idea is to interface that with the focus control of a microscope to allow more accurate stacking of micrographs.
![Stacker%201%20of%203_zpsgmudkdxd.jpg~original](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi814.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fzz65%2Fimsl-imaging%2FStacker%25201%2520of%25203_zpsgmudkdxd.jpg%7Eoriginal&hash=dcbf424980c569e0e6f529c3f251fdb8)
It is a composite made by focus stacking 50 images taken at 50 focal points, each 1 mm apart. Now, as you can imagine, this is a tedious business when done by hand, and prone to quite a bit of error. However, it can be automated and in this case the automation was achieved using a piece of equipment from the company Cognisys called a Stackshot. It is comprised of a camera support on a guide rail driven by a stepper motor connected to a controller that automates shoot / move sequences. Here is the setup:
![Stacker%202%20of%203_zps3fsmtn9p.jpg~original](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi814.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fzz65%2Fimsl-imaging%2FStacker%25202%2520of%25203_zps3fsmtn9p.jpg%7Eoriginal&hash=3d338c4fd1b329e31cc7b7caedc2141e)
![Stacker%203%20of%203_zps7s9l32lg.jpg~original](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi814.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fzz65%2Fimsl-imaging%2FStacker%25203%2520of%25203_zps7s9l32lg.jpg%7Eoriginal&hash=ff6dbf802ca8dcedeec0d501d5cd8f58)
You can see the Stackshot mounted on the Devere copy stand and on it is mounted a Nikon D3s + 55mm Micro Nikkor (I also have an interface cable to allow connection to our D800 / D800E). The skull is sitting on the black background and is angled up towards the camera). Image stacking was performed using Helicon Focus although the unit can interface with Zyrene Stacker as well. After stacking, the composite image was imported into LR for cropping and minor adjustment (cleaning up of specks on the background and the removal of the odd artefact etc).
Details of the unit can be found at:
https://www.cognisys-inc.com/products/stackshot/stackshot.php
I also have a second stepper motor that can be controlled by the unit and the idea is to interface that with the focus control of a microscope to allow more accurate stacking of micrographs.