If I don’t photograph professionally, I do so only from the “artistic” aspect, the accuracy of the reproduction plays hardly any role for me.
As for myself, I take pictures mostly for work, as a plant pathologist.
I consider this both a bliss and a curse.
A bliss because I always strive to take the most accurate picture out of my samples (low ISO, no strong shadows, no diffraction etc). By doing so, in post production I limit myself to some little cropping and a bit of sharpening. Most of all, I never change the colours of my samples in the pictures (they must be accurate as regards the subject displayed).
A curse because I have never learned properly how to work with RawTherapee since my pictures have usually little noise to correct, no strong shadows to decrease and so on. As a consequence, I am not forced to learn this software and I am still a beginner as regards its tools…
For your use-case I would also consider a Pentax-K1. You are working under well controlled conditions where you really can get an advantage by using pixelshift.
Maybe you should then use a color target for your images for obtaining more correct colors. A raw file or a camera jpeg are not reliable in this respect.
For your use-case I would also consider a Pentax-K1. You are working under well controlled conditions where you really can get an advantage by using pixelshift.
SURE!
I have pondered about this choice quite a lot indeed since this Pentax reflex is cheaper than the D850 and I have read really good reviews.
In the end I have opted for the Nikon D850 for these “questionable” personal reasons:
I am a Nikon guy (just joking of course…);
We have got plenty of old Nikon lenses in our laboratory;
Nikon D850 Raw files and features are usually better handled with commercial softwares (e.g. Capture one as regards the tethering implementation). With RawTherapee, I hope it will play along fine (as the Nikon D700 did superbly).
there are tons of tutorials on YouTube for the Nikon D850;
I am going to use the Nikon D850 always on a tripod in our laboratory and I don’t mind it is not internally stabilized as regards its sensor (the Pentax has this nice feature instead).
But again, it is a very tough decision since they are both incredible and amazing reflex!
I’m a Nikon guy myself, though I would still prefer a pixelshift-capable cam for your usecase.
One downside of this choice is the biggest size of the Raw files (judging only from what I have read of course and I may be completely wrong here…). Therefore, much time to process them in the camere itself; much time to download them; much time to edit them etc.
In truth, I am sure I am going to miss my Nikon D700 a lot
When I take my macro pictures of plant diseases, very close to the subject, I am always forced to focus stacking them (in short take many pictures) in order to assemble them later on with another software (now my workhorse is Affinity photo but I have tried also Zerene which was a magnificent software at this task). As a consequence, I suspect the pixel shifting feature is not good enough for this task (but again, I may be 100% wrong…)
But indeed, I am persuaded the Pentax choice is a very good option as well
No need (and no advantage) to process them in the camera!
Of course pixelshift quadruples the amont of input data for RT. The amount of output data is the same as for non pixelshift, but better in terms of colors, noise, and details.
As my father is still in the ICU, I won’t be giving too much input.
The reason that I ask is because there are many approaches to sharpening, de-blurring, and contrast or edge enhancement. I would say that the ones used or suggested so far are good enough for general purpose sharpening. If they work for you, then great. However, if you have a specific set of criteria as to what constitutes good sharpening, do share.
It might help to provide examples of sharp frames taken by yourself or someone else, and annotated examples of where post-processing sharpening is ineffective.
You flatter me. I tend to make my own newbie filters for personal use. They aren’t ready for release. Ask folks such as @garagecoder@iarga@Iain for direction.
In general, I find myself using these two the most often (the type, not actual filters). a Similar to ImageMagick’s Laplacian Of Gaussians (LoG, Convolution of Images -- ImageMagick Examples). I don’t know how it compares to RT’s edge and micro-contrast methods. b Detail layer obtained by the guided filter (or any other robust edge-aware smoothing filter).
You flatter me. I tend to make my own newbie filters for personal use. They aren’t ready for release.
IMHO, you are underestimating your filters skills!
Thanks a lot indeed for your suggestions.
My question was just out of sheer curiosity because I do think you are quite expert on the G’MIC stuff
In all truth, every day I took so many pictures at work of my samples that I have hardly any time left to improve them (e.g. via sharpening) later on. Luckilly my reflex is quite forgiving…
My take, with sharpening the goal. The coin was messing up the stats. I began by trimming it out and then doing a crop based on the detail of the image.
PhotoFlow blend HL, RCD demosaicing, vignetting and CA correction, no-clip linear float. gmic trim, focus, brighten (HLG), sharpen (guided), sharpen (LoG), resize, sharpen (LoG)
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I tend to make my own newbie filters for personal use. They aren’t ready for release. 
Ask folks such as 
