Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
DIY Focus Stacking for Macro Photography
Hydron:
Ooh, seems the focus stacking rabbit-hole goes deeper than I imagined...
I'm wondering if there is any use of 3D printers as a readily available focusing stage - just attach the camera to the Z axis and send some G-code to wind it up a little bit per photo? Probably wouldn't work on the higher magnification end, but maybe with more modest setups? Apologies if this is widely done or doesn't work - didn't see anything about it in my brief look at the equipment section of the forum.
Appreciate the images!
2N3055:
Amazing!
mawyatt:
--- Quote from: Hydron on July 01, 2020, 10:04:05 pm ---Ooh, seems the focus stacking rabbit-hole goes deeper than I imagined...
I'm wondering if there is any use of 3D printers as a readily available focusing stage - just attach the camera to the Z axis and send some G-code to wind it up a little bit per photo? Probably wouldn't work on the higher magnification end, but maybe with more modest setups? Apologies if this is widely done or doesn't work - didn't see anything about it in my brief look at the equipment section of the forum.
Appreciate the images!
--- End quote ---
I think the best value for a good setup would be the WeMacro focus rail and the WeMacro Vertical Stand, this works well up to about 10X and some have good results beyond. Pretty much plug-n-play with your camera and lens. A couple simple mods extends the Vertical Stand to handle beyond 20X, this stand also works horizontally if you get the option.
For beginning DIY you'll probably end up spending more to get things in good working order than just getting the WeMacro. Once your "hooked" then you'll want to get better focus rails, camera, lenses, setups and it never ends, please don't ask how I know :o This is really where the DIY comes into play.
Think we've pretty much pegged the limit performance on focus rails with the THK KR types, with 400 step motors and Trinamic based controllers, that's when the piezo efforts began. This is seriously expensive stuff new, well the THK stuff is also, so eBay becomes a valuable resource :)
If you watch sometimes you can find a bargain, but it's always a risk like anything off eBay.
Some folks have 3D printed various adapters, holding fixtures and light fixtures, but I haven't seen anything like a focus rail.
The camera is probably the least important item in the setup, almost anything will work, and work well. Lenses and lighting become critical for high resolution images, and handling vibration issues becomes a never ended task, especially as you increase magnification. Kinda like the folks doing the high resolution LTZ1000 voltage references, at those levels everything matters!!
Best,
mawyatt:
--- Quote from: 2N3055 on July 01, 2020, 10:23:03 pm ---Amazing!
--- End quote ---
Thanks.
A colleague got a 55 inch OLED display mainly to show these chip images (well not these, but some later proprietary ones). He also had one printed on a very large metal base. They look incredible, now he's probably going for a larger OLED screen!!
If seeing a 1/2 gigpixel chip image printed the size of a wall sounds interesting, especially if it's one of your chips, then you are probably going to get hooked ;D
Best,
RoGeorge:
--- Quote from: mawyatt on July 01, 2020, 10:42:25 pm ---Think we've pretty much pegged the limit performance on focus rails with the THK KR types, with 400 step motors and Trinamic based controllers, that's when the piezo efforts began. This is seriously expensive stuff new, well the THK stuff is also, so eBay becomes a valuable resource :)
--- End quote ---
The speaker as a focus stage idea you mentioned before seems a very good alternative. Much easier to control than a piezo actuator, also, since is a mass produced item, a speaker is very cheap.
Another idea that just came when you wrote together the words voice coil actuator and speaker (mass produced), was the actuator from a CD/DVD/BluRay unit. It is mass produced (so it's very cheap), and is capable of very high speed moves on more than one axis. Has all the mechanics in place, very low inertia and high speed photodiodes to implement a very fast PID for stabilisation.
Gave it a search and found a nice paper (https://doi.org/10.1021/acssensors.8b00340) about reverse engineering the optical head of a disc unit (3 different models from gaming consoles). In the supplementary material there is a slide show presentation and some control schematics, too: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acssensors.8b00340
The up down range is quite limited, just a couple of millimeters, probably enough for a chip die or a very small insect.
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