Attempted stacked image of protist

[Radazz]

3 shot stack of unidentified protist.
Nikon 40x PH3 Picolay.
This is way harder than I thought.

[billbillt]

Hi Radazz,

It looks to me it turned out well.. I think you posted a very good photo...

BillT

[IanW]

Good try. It is very difficult with moving subject. Did you rapidly fire several shots whilst focussing?

[hkv]

It is very difficult to stack moving subjects. Almost impossible. I think you managed it well! What is even harder is when you have a moving subject alongside stationary subjects. Zerene/Picolay and more advanced stacking tools have the ability to rotate, scale and move subjects so that stacking can be done even though there is slight movement between frames. However, if you also have stationary objects, like the algae in the picture, it becomes tricky what the motion detection should focus on. Should keep the algae on top of each other or should it focus on the proteist? Normally you end up with it trying to solve both equations and you get a blurry mess. What you can do to improve the situation is to make sure that you ONLY have the moving subject in the picture OR try to edit away the algae before stacking. In that way Zerene/Picolay can make a better job trying to stack it by rotating and moving it around in preprocessing. You selected a very difficult scenario for stacking here. One of the toughest.

[Radazz]

I got lucky with the critter, she was happily nestled against some algae.
The strand on the left was waving around and looks like two strands, but that was inconsequential.

Also, thanks Billt

[vasselle]

Bonjour
Très belle images
Cordialement seb