Download Central

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54 thoughts on “Download Central

  1. I prefer to download the course because my internet is not very good and when I watch online images do not always come in sharp and your commentary breaks up. If I want to watch a video and my wife is using the internet as well it doesn’t work either.
    This is what did for the Lightroom videos so I am looking forward to the download links working.
    Cheers
    Mick

    1. Up and running now, sorry for the inconvenience.

      1. Not a problem!

  2. Never had so much hastle to buy something, never again.

    1. Can I ask what went wrong during ordering?

    2. Ian, I was less than pleased the first time I purchased from Steve ~ but Steve was interested in the feedback and the way he handled communications with me made me a very big fan. Give him a chance, let him know what your frustration was. I have learned a lot from and since that first frustration.

    3. My purchase was simplicity itself!!

    4. Well, for me it was probably one of the easiest purchases online. I have been watching Steve’s videos and have purchases a couple of eBooks before. He is an outstanding teacher. No one is perfect but just make another attempt and you will not be sorry at all. I’ve just purchased three items during the Black Friday sales and I will be sitting with them soon.

  3. So excited to start this course. Love the way you impart your knowledge to us Steve, and can’t wait until you have another workshop. Saving the pennies, dime and dollars for a Costa Rica trip.

  4. Steve, how do I watch the videos on line? I seem to be directed to the Download only.

    1. Just move to the next one using the Previous / Next unit buttons (Next Unit in this case). You can also access any unit at any time by going to the main course page:
      https://bcgwebstore.com/my-account/courses/
      clicking the course name, and expanding the course. You can click any unit name for instant access to that part of the course.

      1. Steve, I am stuck in the Download Central. Where may I find the on-line units?

        1. Steve, Disregard my previous msg. I found it, the second item in the Download area. Thanks.

  5. It would be nice to be able to download the complete set of videos all at once, as is possible with every other video course I have purchased from other sources, rather than having to download these one at a time.

    1. We’ve tried that before and there are so many people with slow connections it causes problems. The course is 24GB, so it’s fairly large and internet connections often time out / drop the download. We have to pay for every bit of bandwidth we use, so I can’t have people downloading gigs and gigs and then starting over. So, we have to do it this way. Out of curiosity, what sizes have you downloaded from other courses in the past and how long were they? I’m curious to see if there’s another way to go about this.

      1. Steve- I went back and checked the courses I have downloaded. As you had indicated many are in the 5-10GB range. However, a few were in the 15-20GB range and one was over 40GB. Anyway – I downloaded the individual files and all are fine. Not that much of an inconvenience. I do appreciate you ebooks and courses – and am always on the lookout for your posts.

        1. Thanks for the followup – it’s really appreciated. I’ve wondered if it was just me that had these large files or if it was par for the course.

          I did figure out a way to get a much smaller file size and, to my eyes, the quality is exactly the same. I’m uploading a single 6.9GB file to the S3 server at the moment that will allow me to do this with just a single file.

          Anyhow, thanks for the kind words and enjoy the videos 🙂

          1. Thanks Steve. I have downloaded this version and agree that the quality appears to be the same. And it sure does take up less space on my hard drive!!

  6. Hello, I am on the 1-intro-Basic.zip access. I thought It would start immediately. I am still waiting on a Zip file to open after more than 15 minutes and my google says I have an other 2/1 minute to wait. How can I click and see one lesson at a time like your other videos ? Thanks Pierre

  7. Hi, to keep you informed. The Basic video downloaded and it was fine and it is saved on my PC. Now I would have liked to view the field set-up. But my click on link ended up downloading it. so I have to wait 24 minutes. Is their a way around this downloading the videos before being allowed to view them?
    Thanks / Pierre
    PS the first basic video was exactly what I needed.

    1. You’re in the download area, not the streaming area. If you want to watch / stream the videos right on the spot, use the links below this unit in the course – or just hit the “Next Unit” button under the links. You’ll have streaming videos right on the spot. You can also access any of the lessons by going to the main courses page and clicking on their links.
      https://bcgwebstore.com/my-account/courses/

  8. Hi Steve, Another excellent piece of informative narrative to help us hone these skills. Most of us leisure photographers don’t use stacking regularly enough to develop our own experience, so to have you help point the way is very welcome. As Mick Durham mentions above, I too have downloaded as it helps me work through when the internet links aren’t there. It is a slow…..very slow process, so perhaps a link from say a Dropbox account would speed things along. Thanks for your work on this.

    1. Hi Pat – Thanks!

      Dropbox won’t allow it – it’s a 24GB set of files. We are hosting them on an Amazon S3 server, so it’s actually faster than you could ever get with dropbox anyway – it’s just the sheer size of it. The good news is that I think I may have found a way to make it much smaller using a different compression method that doesn’t seem to show any noticeable degradation in quality. After a bit more testing, I’ll update the links if everything looks good.

  9. I Steve, my first purchase with you. It looks complicated. Over time I may succeed but it looks so complicated compared with your “competitors” i.e. A “click” and you easily download the whole course. Otherwise, you watch it online and the two options are clearly indicated.
    I’m still struggling. I’ve opened DOWNLOAD CENTRAL and started loading Part 1. It look awfully slow and I do have a decente connection. Am I doing anything wrong?
    Thanks for advising !
    Giorgio

    1. I’m actually working on a single download right now and it’s a smaller size – 7GB total instead of 24GB and quality looks the same, just better compression. If you want to hold off, it’ll be available later today (I think – it’s uploading now, not sure how long it’ll take). In the mean time, you can stream the videos too by clicking the Next Unit button below the links.

  10. Hi Steve,
    Thx a lot for another great teaching piece.
    I think that the video “Bonus video – John Oliver Cabin, finishing the stack image in Lightroom” is missing in the “5-cabin-stack-Photoshop.zip…
    Cheers,
    RF

    1. It’s a bonus video and should be in Bonus-1.zip.

      1. Ooooopppps. Sorry about that.
        Cheers,
        RF

        1. No worries at all 🙂

  11. Just updated the page – it’s good to go.

  12. Thanks for providing the download links. I have a pretty fast connection and it’s convenient to have access when outwith internet reception areas. Any chance of doing video versions of your ebooks?

    1. Hi Karen – I’d like to say I would, and I do some You Tube videos that often supplement them, but these video courses are incredibly difficult to produce (I’m a one-man show), so I don’t think it’ll happen for the books. There’s just so much info it would take over a year to do just a single book as a video – maybe two years.

  13. Video quality is very good Steve and all your reproductions come up very well, even on my older monitor, so I’m pretty happy with the overall quality of the course material………….so far. You’re looking good as well.

    I’ve downloaded so I can access directly from my desktop or transfer to a laptop for portable viewing and playing on a VLC player which reproduces with good definition. Everything is easy to see and study with depth and detail.

    The basic technique looks straightforward enough for the D850 so I’m looking forward to all the tips and tricks that you can deliver from your field work and PP. An exciting and creative development for our photography that I hope to take full advantage of in time.

    Best wishes
    David

  14. I have downloaded units 1-4. Are there other units to download, if so, where do I find them?

    1. Hi Jerry –

      There are multiple videos in each zip file – you have all 20 🙂

  15. Hi Steve,

    I always download as I travel and there is nothing like learning while the train trundles on.

  16. download complete, easy peasy, chop-chop. Gotta go stack something now!

    1. Awesome!

  17. Hi Steve,
    Greetings from the Antibodies (Australia). Just downloaded the complete compressed version of Focus Stacking (6.9GB), which took just over I hour with no server lag or disconnection. Decompressed OK and the image quality and audio on a 2K monitor is top notch.

    Looking forward to viewing the video with a glass of fine Australia red.

    Cheers,
    -David

    1. Awesome – and thank you!

  18. Hey Steve, sorry for the others who had issues downloading but mine went smooth and hassle-free, except for the minor fact I couldn’t remember my Backcountry Gallery password. Thanks for the option for single click download. That works best for me. The information in your books is priceless so this seemed like a no brainer. I’ve had marginal success with my D850 focus stacking and hope to become much more skilled after this course. Your stuff is best in class, keep them coming.

    1. Thanks! 🙂 I’ve changed the download options a few times, it looks like it’s finally working for everyone now. I think I just made it too confusing at first.

  19. Very helpful series. Steve is very knowledgeable and does a great job of explaining the process. I have a D850 and had tried the focus shifting with minimal success. I now know how to go about this and am confident that my next images will be greatly improved. For now I use LR and PS but hope to purchase one of the stacking software programs mentioned in the series.
    And for the record, I had no trouble downloading the videos which is my preference so I can work when I don’t have internet.
    Thanks Steve!

  20. Hello Steve,

    What could be the reason the download speed is so low? I have a 500 Mbit connection but downloading 1 part (1.8 Gb) takes 50 minutes according the download indicator? It’s not a big problem, just wondering.

    Regards Bert

    1. The files are hosted on an Amazon S3 server, so it’s incredibly robust (used by Netflix, Hulu, etc). So, my guess is there’s some sort of network tie-up between your location and the server that’s causing the slowdown.

  21. Hi Steve,

    Just downloaded Part 1 while making breakfast; now unzipping the file. I am looking forward to learn a new technique on macro and landscape photography. I like to have your eBooks and video on my Macbook/iPad while I am on the road. They are so invaluable to improve my photography.

  22. Hi Steve,
    What lens were you using for the cabin and flower demo? When focus stacking do you have any recommendations for lenses with less focus breathing when compared to others?
    Thank you,
    Scott

    1. For the cabin it was the 27-70 2.8 Z series lens, for the flower it was the 105 macro, the previous AF-S version (I now have the Z mount version – it’s great).

      1. Was the 105 af-s macro the 1.4 or 2.8? I have the 2.8 version which seems to have a ton of breathing as the camera moves the focus point. This movement seems to add a lot more halos when stack is processed in Helicon.
        In your video you mentioned that Heliocon will manipulate the picture sizes to help align them? Are there some lenses that have more breathing than the program can adjust for?

  23. Help! I too prefer the single-click download. However only Part 1&2 downloaded. When I click the other individual parts 3&4 I get this message “This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.”
    Thanks . JC

    1. Try refreshing the page – the downloads links expire. (you may have to log out and come back in or shut down the browser and try again).

  24. I love your videos, but this one looks like it has not been updated since 2020. It doesn’t specifically cover either of my cameras: Z8 or Z6 II. Am I clicking the wrong link?

    1. As noted on the product page, those cameras are not specifically covered by the course. However, they work the same way (with the exception of the “Peaking Stack” option – that was only in the origiaonl Z6/7 for some reason). Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same thing. The only difference with eh Z8 is that it has an option for Focus Position Auto Reset that is not covered in the course. Here’s how it works:

      This option tells the camera that once it’s done shooting the series, it should return the focus distance back to where it was when it started.

      This option is handy if you want to take a few series of the same subject. For example, maybe you’re photographing a flower, but you’re concerned that it might be moving a tiny bit in the wind. With Focus Position Auto Reset enabled, once the camera stops shooting the series, it’ll put the focus distance back to the front of the flower (assuming that’s where you had it initially) so you can take another series or two, just in case. 

      As a bonus, with this enabled, the camera will return focus to the starting distance if you cancel a sequence by pressing the OK button. This is handy if you catch the subject moving during the series and you need to start over. You can press OK, the camera will reset the focus distance, and you can try again immediately. 

      That’s all well and good for inanimate subjects, but for tiny frogs, lizards, and insects, I think there are a couple of ways it works against us.

      The first problem occurs if your subject moves during the sequence and your starting focus point is somewhere on its body (like its nose). If it moves and you have to start over, it’s essential to re-check focus before starting again. Remember, a minor move has a major impact with macro work and the chances are high that your original focus distance will be a touch off.

      Second, and more critically, keep in mind that if you didn’t choose enough shots to get through the stack – and you have this enabled – picking up where you left off is no longer an option. You’ll have to re-start the stack from scratch. Again, with a flower this doesn’t cause any headaches, but with a jittery macro subject that may move at any moment it can spell disaster.

  25. Appreciate the heads up on the size of the files. I downloaded the Intro to get a feel on how long it will take. I’m leaving for a ski/photo trip in a day. I’m not sure how much of the course I can finish before takeoff but figure I can finish as I can ahead and then watch some more on the four hour flight. The place I’m headed is getting hit with a good snow so I’m not sure what the conditions will allow but there should be good opportunities and I’d like to see what I can capture using focus shift.

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