[AlessandroB]

I am sure that many here (this is my first post) are already familiar with Photo Acute stacking and super resolution capabilities, but I haven't seen it used it for portraits. With the very decent shooting speed of the K5, it's actually easy to do, even handheld, as long as your subject can stay a bit still for a second.

So, a little time ago, I was having this conversation with my Nikonian friend, who was bragging about the D800 (with some merit, I have to say), and I asked him to participate in this experiment, shot with the FA 50mm at f5.6 for sharpness, 1/60 sec.

This was a stack of 6 pictures. I know the subject is not the most interesting, and it was a really cold morning and you can tell, but it was fun to see his disbelief at seeing that the "lowly" Pentax could generate a 50 megapixel image.
Here's a link to the original (no point to try to embed it here I guess)

http://www.aleatorily.com/img/s3/v42/p390454760.jpg

Here is another example of close up (still with the FA 50mm, this time at f1.4, and it's a bit softer):

http://www.aleatorily.com/img/s3/v39/p113154605.jpg

And a more stationary subject, with the kit lens.

http://www.aleatorily.com/img/s3/v42/p892338797.jpg

I just thought to share it, so that we don't focus only on the recent price increases...

[Philoslothical]

Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing it. In the first couple examples you posted there seems to be a demosaicing pattern to the noise, is that normal and to be expected?

I wonder how this software compares to the other programs that do focus stacking.

[AlessandroB]

I guess it would make sense, considering that the interpolation of adjacent pixels could cause some level of interference with the bayer pattern, and that's probably why it's more evident in the color photos. I have to say that I have added quite some sharpening in LR4 and that probably made it even more obvious.

[demp10]

Have you tried to digitally enlarge (using bi-cubic interpolation or a better resampling algorithm) a well exposed and motion free single frame to 4x, then sharpen it and finally reduce it to 2x of the original to get a 64 MPixel image (from a 16 MP original)?

It would be interesting to compare the results and see if you gain much from using multiple frames vs. digital enlargement. In theory you should, but in practice there are several other variables that contribute to the quality of an image other than resolution.

[miles]

That's interesting Alessandro!
I didn't nkow about it, so thank you for starting this thread!
It sounds a little like what hasselblad does, but in a less controlled manner.
I'll try some shots when i get the chance!

[obscura]

i searched a little bit, there many research papers, and a couple of programs, deep sky stacker for example, its a known app among astrophotographers, and it creates super resolution images, problem is, its for windows only, and i am a mac user. All in all, i found this chart Stacking Software - CHDK Wiki and i thought the Anti-lameness engine should be perfect... but never found a single file... its like it never existed... a ghost program ? !!! only a couple forum threads, nothing else... does anybody know anything about this ?

[usmcxm35]

Should warn people not to load all three pictures at the same time!