Image Stacking

This Arduino-powered DIY macro rail helps you shoot perfect stacked macro shots every time

Feb 1, 2023 by John Aldred Add Comment

If there’s one essential item for macro photography, aside from a macro lens (or extension tubes), it’s a macro focusing rail. We’ve featured a few focusing rails here on DIYP before, like the NiSi NM-180 (review here), as well as some other DIY solutions. This one, from Curious Scientist, is an ongoing project based around an Arduino Nano that uses a stepper motor to move your camera along a rail in fine increments.

I say it’s an ongoing project because since releasing his first video on his motorised macro rail slider only a month ago, he’s already posted an update showing almost a complete redesign of the staging platform on which you mount the camera. Depending on your camera and needs, either design might work very well for you, so I’ve included his videos below for both of them.

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The NiSi NM-180 Macro Focusing Rail makes shooting for focus stacking a breeze

Aug 5, 2020 by John Aldred 6 Comments

While more commonly known for their filters and their upcoming cine lenses, NiSi recently announced their new NM-180 Macro Focusing Rail. Focusing rails are essential pieces of kit for serious macro photographers that allow them to create images that might otherwise be impossible, but how well does the new NiSi NM-180 stack up? Maybe pun intended.

I’ve been using the NiSi Macro Focusing Rail for a few weeks now. The short version of this review is that for what it costs, it’s an extremely well-made device, that has some thoughtful design considerations and does exactly what it’s supposed to. In my opinion, it’s well worth what it costs. But how do focusing rails work and why do you need one?

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NiSi releases its first macro focusing rail for precise focus control

Jun 17, 2020 by John Aldred 12 Comments

Lens and filter manufacturer, NiSi is branching out into macro with their brand new NM-180 Macro Focusing Rail. And from looking at the video and visuals sent over to us, it looks pretty good, with a range of features and design choices that are quite interesting.

Macro focusing rails aren’t a new idea, but they haven’t been really updated in a while and there are a lot of terrible ones out there on the market. They’re designed to help you get more precise movements due to the super shallow depth of field you have when shooting macro. And NiSi’s offering appears to have some cool tricks up its sleeve.

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Kandao Raw+ offers automated image stacking for raw files without ghosting

Jul 17, 2018 by John Aldred 2 Comments

Stacking raw files isn’t anything new. We’ve been able to do it in Photoshop for years. But doing it in Photoshop requires some legwork. If you’ve got moving subjects in your shots, you need to mask things out, which can take a lot of time depending on the shot. Kandao’s new Raw+ software, however, figures it out automatically.

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