OMD Firmware 4 upgrade

[Aussieden]

Focus Stacking and Focus Bracketing seem to be attracting most interest!
Focus stacking is in-camera producing a composite jepg image of up to 8 images stacked. Focus braketing can be up to 999 images but need to processed using stacking software on computer.

Decided to a simple test to see how the new firmware stacks up! (pun intended)

Nothing very scientific or a real closeup/macro but just to see how it works.
Mounted my E-M1 and 40-150mm + MC14 on tripod.
Set camera to Manual, SS 1/100 sec, ISO 200, WB Cloudy (Indoor shed with skylight above on a dull cloudy day), A f4, Gradation Normal, Noise Filter Off.
Subject is an old dog statue in a crouching position approx 48cm in length to provide a bit of DOF. Difference between front paw to rear paw is about 23cm.
Dog statue subject on table at a distance that I could focus on 3 spots. Played around with the focus differential and decide that 2 gave the best results.

Here is result from focusing on nose of dog. Ist image is Ist frame and 2nd image is 8 frames stacked. Both images OOC, no other processing applied.

More experimenting required but it looks like being a nifty feature.
Dennis

[Ross the fiddler]

That looks good. My first try was this.
This is the first frame


And the resulting merge of the 8 frames it takes.


I used the 60mm macro lens at f4 & the maximum differential of 10 for this result. It's not perfect at the back, but it was my first try (well, 3rd try actually).

[Aussieden]

Not bad. The difficult part is to judge the focus point and what focus differential to use. I think 10 is too wide.
I read somewhere else that the focus moves 2 times foward then progressively backwards. But I haven't been able to verify this.
Dennis

[Ross the fiddler]

Not bad. The difficult part is to judge the focus point and what focus differential to use. I think 10 is too wide.
I read somewhere else that the focus moves 2 times foward then progressively backwards. But I haven't been able to verify this.
Dennis

That might be correct as my images seem to have that look about them.

- - - Updated - - -

I did a focus stack outside which I posted in the Weekly Challenge. I will republish here for discussion. Conditions were not idea as it was outside and there was a slight breeze blowing but nevertheless this is likely to be real world conditions. Camera was tripod mounted , 60mm Macro lens , Iso800, f 4.0 and 1/640 sec.

#1 is a single shot and #2 focus stacked.



The other thing I noticed is I can now get my histograms and my horizontal/vertical levels on the same screen. Not sure if this was in the upgrade or always there but it used to frustrate me having to toggle through the views to get from one to another.

That's a great result. The Live View Info now has the Custom 1 & 2 which it didn't have before & I thought it was nice now to have those two aids seen at once. That was something that was introduced with the E-M5 Mk II.