Poor man's pixel shift

[RM8]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Some 2.5 years ago when Leica performed its astounding act of self-amputation there was a brief opportunity for bargains on TL2 good-as-new display units from some Leica Stores and I grabbed one. It became the almost-fixed-back-plane on my TL 55-135 zoom. Small size, low weight, lots of functions yada yada. Now as my age interferes with my ability to avoid motion blur (Dutch dentists please refrain from condescending comments) and of course not having IBIS I had the clever -haha- idea to take all shots with 1/3 EV bracketing and in post choosing the sharpest one, correcting exposure anyhow when needed.

As those three images are close to being just pixel-shifted from each other I was wondering if anybody might be aware of (free) software that combines the information in them into a single sharper one? From what I understand, the purpose of focus stacking is different --mostly separating a subject from its background- but I'd be interested in such software too.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Al Brown]

For proper pixel shifting you need your camera still, your subject still and the lighting also needs to be consistent.
PS. Hasselblad JUST got pixel shifting with the new X2D update, the software is Phocus. Instructions for capture in the update white paper go: "Keep the camera still during capture. Movements of the camera or the presence of moving people or objects in the frame may cause blurring in the merged image or even cause the image merge to fail".

Edited November 7 by Al Brown

[RM8]

On 11/7/2024 at 6:52 PM, Al Brown said:

For proper pixel shifting you need your camera still, your subject still and the lighting also needs to be consistent.
PS. Hasselblad JUST got pixel shifting with the new X2D update, the software is Phocus. Instructions for capture in the update white paper go: "Keep the camera still during capture. Movements of the camera or the presence of moving people or objects in the frame may cause blurring in the merged image or even cause the image merge to fail".

Thanks Al. I thought real pixel shift is a hardware thing that involves programmed vibration of the sensor, so performed in camera? And from what I read about Phocus its focus stacking feature requires the software on your Mac to be tethered to a Hasselblad?

[jaapv]

On 11/7/2024 at 6:52 PM, Al Brown said:

For proper pixel shifting you need your camera still, your subject still and the lighting also needs to be consistent.
PS. Hasselblad JUST got pixel shifting with the new X2D update, the software is Phocus. Instructions for capture in the update white paper go: "Keep the camera still during capture. Movements of the camera or the presence of moving people or objects in the frame may cause blurring in the merged image or even cause the image merge to fail".

Err.. no. The Panasonic system is designed for handheld shooting (within reason)

[Al Brown]

Lots of people confuse PROPER pixel shift with focus stacking. Unfortunately, even more have no idea what each does, how it does it and what is its purpose.

 

[jaapv]

3 hours ago, Al Brown said:

Lots of people confuse PROPER pixel shift with focus stacking

I don't. The S5ii goes from 24 MP to 96MP. Focus stacking is something completely different.

[Al Brown]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

31 minutes ago, jaapv said:

I don't. The S5ii goes from 24 MP to 96MP. Focus stacking is something completely different.

I never said it was you or the OP.

[jaapv]

I didn't think you did. 

[SrMi]

On 11/7/2024 at 9:21 AM, RM8 said:

Some 2.5 years ago when Leica performed its astounding act of self-amputation there was a brief opportunity for bargains on TL2 good-as-new display units from some Leica Stores and I grabbed one. It became the almost-fixed-back-plane on my TL 55-135 zoom. Small size, low weight, lots of functions yada yada. Now as my age interferes with my ability to avoid motion blur (Dutch dentists please refrain from condescending comments) and of course not having IBIS I had the clever -haha- idea to take all shots with 1/3 EV bracketing and in post choosing the sharpest one, correcting exposure anyhow when needed.

As those three images are close to being just pixel-shifted from each other I was wondering if anybody might be aware of (free) software that combines the information in them into a single sharper one? From what I understand, the purpose of focus stacking is different --mostly separating a subject from its background- but I'd be interested in such software too.

A Practical Guide to Creating Superresolution Photos with Photoshop

[RM8]

If y'all allow me to bring this discussion back into (stacked or otherwise haha) focus, a third-party software that I'm looking for does not (yet) exist? That takes a number of closely related images and produces a better (viz. sharper) result? Seemed to me a ready-cut application of AI (highly parallelizable, fit for supervised learning etc). Dutch dentists: maybe pigs will fly after all

[SrMi]

8 minutes ago, RM8 said:

If y'all allow me to bring this discussion back into (stacked or otherwise haha) focus, a third-party software that I'm looking for does not (yet) exist? That takes a number of closely related images and produces a better (viz. sharper) result? 
<snip>

That is not pixel shift.

What is wrong with picking the sharpest image manually? The blurry images cannot improve sharpness.

BTW, it is an old technique to shoot a series of images when the shutter speed becomes too low to have a 100% chance of a sharp image. If that drops to 30%, shooting at least 3 images every time increases the chance of having a keeper.