Steve Hendrix
Well-known member
In light of this thread and my time at Alpa this past week, I am going to provide some information here about a very exciting and upcoming macro solution. The information concerns a prototype product, but it’s not too far out, perhaps early next year. I thought of just starting a new thread centered on this solution, but since it is not finished enough to post product images, I'll just tag it to the existing macro thread already started for now.
This solution will not be for everyone, but then again an Alpa solution is not for everyone anyway. What I have seen in this thread and what I have seen with clients who require depth of field at high magnification is that medium format digital solutions are being utilized with an assortment of techniques and contributing products, but I’m not aware of any solution that pulls it all together in an optimal manner.
Tp address this, Alpa will announce a solution soon, and here are some of the details:
This solution can work extremely well for macro photography but particularly pushes into micro photography. The summary of what this will do is to couple the excellent Alpa products with high megapixel count digital backs, an amazing set of lenses, and a motorized support structure that automates and synchronizes capture with the steps for stacking.
The problem I see for optimizing depth of field on small objects is that yes, you can try adding some tilt to a lens to expand a the focus depth, but this is often not enough for small objects and at a point, can have some destructive effects on the image quality. You also are weighing the chosen aperture, but for micro or macro past 1-1 you’ll be forced to shoot quite open anyway, which deters the depth of field. Or yes, you could expand upon this by performing a stacking routine, but this is a manual process, subject to inconsistency and randomness. It takes time and more importantly, occupies your time during the process.
I do not have photos I can share of the entire solution, as there will be some changes to the prototype that we saw, but I can tell you that the solution is a marriage of:
*Alpa FPS Camera (maybe good news, Gerald?)
*Alpa software solution
*Variety of FPS compatible lenses (but for Micro photography, Linos Inspec Lenses)
*Alpa Motorized Stepping Platform
The combination of this solution will allow you to set the near and far measurements for the subject, the number of steps for the total capture count (and of course the distance for each step), and automate the step sequence, but most importantly, automate the captures to synchronize with the automated motorized steps. And this is all performed with high megapixel digital backs with these amazing lenses.
The FPS Camera is a great fit for this application, given the advanced capability it has for programming a variety of automated capture sequence scenarios.
You should see the MTF curves for the Lino Inspec lenses - I’m not that into the MTF data as much as I am the actual field results - but the charts for these lenses are amazing - and so are the results. They have zero chromatic aberration and even the focus falloff, should you decide you want any, is quite nice. MTF chart is below for the 105mm/5.6, which is what we used during our testing last week. Keep in mind this chart is the performance at f/5.6 and 3X!
While this offers a supreme solution for precision quality, consistent results for extreme macro, or micro photography, the fact that the captures are automatically synchronized with the motorized sequence of steps, and performed with equipment of incredible quality - the camera, lens, and sensor - means that even someone producing standard macro distance captures will experience a quality not matched by any other current solution I am aware of.
Some samples of our practice runs last week - not perfect, but they’re unsharpened beyond defaults and still are quite impressive. I believe this image file was comprised of 300 captures.
Steve Hendrix
Capture Integration
This solution will not be for everyone, but then again an Alpa solution is not for everyone anyway. What I have seen in this thread and what I have seen with clients who require depth of field at high magnification is that medium format digital solutions are being utilized with an assortment of techniques and contributing products, but I’m not aware of any solution that pulls it all together in an optimal manner.
Tp address this, Alpa will announce a solution soon, and here are some of the details:
This solution can work extremely well for macro photography but particularly pushes into micro photography. The summary of what this will do is to couple the excellent Alpa products with high megapixel count digital backs, an amazing set of lenses, and a motorized support structure that automates and synchronizes capture with the steps for stacking.
The problem I see for optimizing depth of field on small objects is that yes, you can try adding some tilt to a lens to expand a the focus depth, but this is often not enough for small objects and at a point, can have some destructive effects on the image quality. You also are weighing the chosen aperture, but for micro or macro past 1-1 you’ll be forced to shoot quite open anyway, which deters the depth of field. Or yes, you could expand upon this by performing a stacking routine, but this is a manual process, subject to inconsistency and randomness. It takes time and more importantly, occupies your time during the process.
I do not have photos I can share of the entire solution, as there will be some changes to the prototype that we saw, but I can tell you that the solution is a marriage of:
*Alpa FPS Camera (maybe good news, Gerald?)
*Alpa software solution
*Variety of FPS compatible lenses (but for Micro photography, Linos Inspec Lenses)
*Alpa Motorized Stepping Platform
The combination of this solution will allow you to set the near and far measurements for the subject, the number of steps for the total capture count (and of course the distance for each step), and automate the step sequence, but most importantly, automate the captures to synchronize with the automated motorized steps. And this is all performed with high megapixel digital backs with these amazing lenses.
The FPS Camera is a great fit for this application, given the advanced capability it has for programming a variety of automated capture sequence scenarios.
You should see the MTF curves for the Lino Inspec lenses - I’m not that into the MTF data as much as I am the actual field results - but the charts for these lenses are amazing - and so are the results. They have zero chromatic aberration and even the focus falloff, should you decide you want any, is quite nice. MTF chart is below for the 105mm/5.6, which is what we used during our testing last week. Keep in mind this chart is the performance at f/5.6 and 3X!
While this offers a supreme solution for precision quality, consistent results for extreme macro, or micro photography, the fact that the captures are automatically synchronized with the motorized sequence of steps, and performed with equipment of incredible quality - the camera, lens, and sensor - means that even someone producing standard macro distance captures will experience a quality not matched by any other current solution I am aware of.
Some samples of our practice runs last week - not perfect, but they’re unsharpened beyond defaults and still are quite impressive. I believe this image file was comprised of 300 captures.
Steve Hendrix
Capture Integration