The Art of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking A Primer
The Art of Focus Stacking
Table of Contents Focus Stacking Problems with Focus Stacking Camera Equipment The Wind and Focus Stacking Processing Focus Stacks Examples of Focus Stacking Provisional Results Summary The Inspiration Factor
Copyright © Michael Erlewine 2010 All-rights Reserved ISBN 0-925182-70-2 Permission Permi ssion to share, but not to sell or bundle.
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Example of “Deep Stack” Focus Stacking The Photographer
The Art of Focus Stacking Focus Stacking
Interest in ‘ocus stacking’ is increasing rapidly. In this short article, I would like to suggest some reasons why this might be. For those o you unamiliar with ocus stacking, let’s make clear what it is. Just as exposure bracketing and HDR (High Dynamic Range), techniques where a number o photos are taken at dierent exposures and then seamlessly combined into a nal photograph are popular, so ocus stacking takes a series o photos o an object each taken at a slightly dierent ocus points and combines these photos seamlessly into a nal photo that represents the object with ever ything in ocus, as i it naturally had g reater depth o eld (DOF). Focus Stacking is ess entially ‘ocus bracketing’, and the result is a photo where everything (or more than you might expect) appears to be in ocus, as opposed to the traditional photograph where there is only a single point o ocus and anything not at the point is to s ome degree out o ocus, however slightly. Te resulting stacked photo (rom combining the images at dierent ocal distances) can be remarkable, and advances in sotware like Zerene Stacker, Helicon Focus, Adobe’s Photoshop CS4 are perecting this technique. Two Types of Focus Stacking
Tere are two general types o ocus stacking being used today, with perhaps the most common idea o this technique including a camera mounted on a ocusing rail (or a lens with bellows attached) and the photographer taking many dozens (sometimes up to 150-200) 150-200) photographs, each one just a ew millimeters apart rom one another. Tis rst technique is used mostly or scientic, product photography, and by a ew naturalists who careully create deep stacks, usually in a studio, like the one on the let, which is very lovely. And while this more elaborate orm o ocus stacking is wonderul in its own way, it requires more specialized equipment and does not readily lend itsel to being used outside in the elds and woods, or at least is more dicult to take outside. Tere are many tutorials on the web or this type o more-technical style o ocus stacking available, so I reer you to Google to nd those. For mysel, I am not much interested in that method, because I don’t want to haul all that equipment around.
A Deep Stack Using a Focus Rail by Ed French This is a 67 image pano where each image had a generous overlap > 50%. The center was shot at f/5.6 and focus stacked from another 55 images. After the center images were taken, the artist switched to
It is also possible to stack photos and get excellent results armed with just a camera and a tripod, and that will be the method presented here. In this article I will present some guidelines to what I call Short-Stacking, where instead o 100 layers painstakingly shot to achieve perect incremental ocus (a science in itsel), we shoot just a ew (let’s say rom two to a dozen) photos and combine those to achieve the eect o seeming greater ocus and depth o eld (DOF). Tis less technical approach is, by denition, somewhat more impressionistic than the rst method I described, because no attempt is made to get every possible micro layer-
step photographed, which in nature (as we know) is very dicult due to wind, changing light, moving creatures, and so on. With short-stacking we shoot ewer photos, choosing which layers in the scene we want to capture and have in ocus that represent our impression o what is key or beautiul about the particular shot. o my mind, although less demanding there is somewhat more art in this method, but that is just my opinion. I like it because I can be out in the wilds o nature without a lot o equipment and still produce photos with an apparent greater ocus and depth o eld, thus: ocus stacking. The Equipment Needed While theoretically you can stack ocus with any digital camera, in reality the process quickly sorts itsel out in avor o better cameras and (or sure) sharp lenses. Ater all, the ‘ocus’ in ocus stacking means trying to get things sharp, and that requires a lens that is actually sharp and a camera that can process the light rom the lens e ciently. ciently. In practice any decent digital camera with a sharp lens will work, but like everything else, it is easy to all into the pattern o wanting a better camera and (in particular) better and sharper lenses. And let’s not orget about tripods.
While some ew photographers who ocus stack make a virtue out o hand-holding their shots (Look mom, no tripod!), the rest o us will nd that we want our camera and lens mounted on a stable tripod. With all o the other variables in this technique, trying to hand-hold the camera is not something I would choose to do with this technique. So, in this presentation, good ocus stacking requires a tripod. Ater all, we want the scene to hold perectly still while we sample shots at dierent ocal distances. Having the camera also shake and move around simply because I am holding it does not interest me. So, I suggest you need a camera, a good lens, and both o those mounted on a sturdy tripod. The Actual Technique
Given that you have the camera securely mounted on a tripod, the technique is pretty straight orward. You aim the camera at a scene you like, w hether close-up (as in macro photography) or arther away (as with landscape), and proceed to take several careully-ocused photos at various ocal distances. You will need to decide what part o the scene you want to have in ocus, which or a landscape shot may be the whole thing, but or a close-up shot it could be just a fower. Let’s use a fower or a lea as an example. Starting at the very ront most part o the fower, careully ocus at that ront edge and take a s hot. Next, using the ocus ring on your camera, move it just enough to ocus a little deeper into the subject and take a second shot, and so on, until your nal shot is one o the ar (rear) edge o the subject.
Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking You now have a series o photos, each with a dierent ocus point, running rom the ront to the back o the object. In each shot, part o the fower is in perect ocus, while the rest o the shot (to some degree) lacks ocus. You might have as ew photos as two or as many as you like or eel you need. As mentioned earlier, i you get into dozens or hundreds o shots, you probably need to have special equipment, chiefy some kind o ocusing rack to mount your camera on that allows tiny evenlyspaced incremental movements, etc. For reasons given above, I am not going there in this article, but working with j ust a camera and tripos.. Once you have taken several layers o shots, you are ready to process the layers into a single photograph. You do this back home on your computer using special sotware which you w ill need to have. Some brands o ocus-stacking sotware include: Adobe Photoshop CS4 CombineZM Helicon Focus Zerene Stacker I have tried all o the above sotware and, while they all seem to work, each has its quirks. CombineZM is ree (GPL), s o you might want to download a copy, but it lacks the polish and ease o use (IMO) that I look or in a program. Te most well-known application that can process photo stacks is Adobe Photoshop CS4, which is easy to us e, but it is not ree and also runs very slowly when building s tacks. Tere is a general review o ocus-stacking sotware later in this article, including how to stack in Photoshop, but all o the above-listed sotware do more or less the same thing, which is to align your stack o photos and merge them. Te program I us e almost all the time is Zerene Stacker, but all o the above can do the job. Software to Align and Merge
me it has been good, because I need to learn to have more patience and this is a un way to do that. The Result
So there you have the ge neral technique, which as you see is actually pretty simple. Te tricky part is learning how to get the results you imagine, rather than the results you actually get. Focus stacking is a natural teacher about expectations and real-world experience. You don’t don’t always or easily get what you want. At le ast I don’t. don’t. However, ocus stacking can deliver stunning results when all goes well. I nd it worth the eort, but don’t imagine that ocus stacking is the only kind o photography I do. Tere are subjects that lend themselves to stacking and those that do not. I already knew something about traditional depth-o-eld photography and wanted to add this new technique to my skills. In this article I will try to illustrate (using photos) some o the ins and outs o ocus stacking, hopeully to make your experience o this ascinating technique easier. Beore we get into some o the technique o ocus stacking, I would like to present a possible reason why ocus stacking is so appealing to the eye. A Possible Theory
Human vision can only ocus on one area o a scene at a time. No matter how much we take in, no matter how much is going on around us, our eyes can only ocus at one point at any given time. Everything but that point o ocus is, to some degree, out o ocus. Just try it now. Look across the room at an object and note how your peripheral vision on either side o the object is slightly out o ocus. We are so used to this phenomenon that we are s eldom even aware o it.
Using the sotware, the stack o photos we took, each at a dier Although everything around us actually is not in ocus, ent ocus point, needs to be lined up. Every time we turn the oexcept where we look, this does not aect us because whercus ring, the whole image is enlarged (or shrunk), depending on ever we look, things are in ocus. Te mind automatically which way we turn it. While each layer is a photo o the same behaves as i we live in a world where everything is always object, these photos are enough dierent that they don’t don’t just auin ocus, because as we look here or there, things are always tomatically line up. Tey have to be aligned, one with the other. in ocus, which brings me to my point: Once the stack o photos are in the stacking sotware (each one Te photos we take, at le ast at near distances, are seldom in a dierent layer), the program has to do two things and in this order. First the program will align all o the dierent photos in complete ocus. In act, we have no choice but to ocus so they line up with one another internally. Tis can take a long on one area o a scene or another, and all other areas will be at least somewhat out o ocus. Tis is why photogra while in Photoshop, but Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker are phers make such a big deal out o depth o eld (DOF). In very ast. particular, macro macro photographers struggle to get this beetle Once the layers are aligned, we then the aligned layers are blor that butterfy (in its entirety) in ocus. We push our eneded to merge the separate layers into a single photo, which stops so high that diraction oten destroys our resolution we then fatten and save to our hard drive. It is as simple as that, beore we can get everything in ocus. Enter ocus stacking. although these operations can take a long time, depending on Focus Stacking creates a photo image where most everythe number o layers and the subject matter. Something with a thing is in ocus, just like our mind assumes the world out lot o contrast and detail is easier or the sotware to align than say a pile o sand, whe re there are not many reerence objects. It there is, as well – in ocus. While with most photos we are drawn to wherever the photographer happened to ocus, all depends. Some take seconds, while others can take 30 minutes or more. Photo stacking, like macro photography itsel, is a given a stacked photo, we are ree to look anywhere we want. Te photographer no longer dictates where our
Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking just kind o look around as we like. Tis newound reedom brings a kind o spaciousness to the mind and stacked photos have an almost 3D quality, when really the only thing new is that the whole picture (or at least the main subject) is more in ocus than we are used to. Let’s look at examples o stack photos and some o the things to keep in mind.
Stacked ResultingPhoto Stacked Photo
A Simple T wo-P h ot o S tack Problems with Focus Stacking
NEAR SHOT The Simplest Stack
Here is a stack o two photos, a near shot (above) and a ar shot (below). Stack the two together, blend them, and we get the nished shot on the right side o the page. Pretty simple, two quick shots combined to give you a depth o eld it would be very dicult to get otherwise. Te result composite photo puts the railing, the boad walk, and even the background in decent ocus, and lends a sense o space and clarity to the shot. Note: With a good 60mm lens, you might be able to get this depth o eld without stacking.
FAR SHOT
The Art of Focus Stacking
Focus Stacking: An Example
Stacked Photo
Front in Focus
Rear in Focus
Here is a photo o a little spring diorama, some Michigan erns emerging. Notice how the erns in the ront are in ocus on the let, but those in the back are not. In the right photo, the erns in the rear are in ocus, but those in ront are not. Our eye is drawn to the area in the photo where everything is in ocus. rying to get the whole scene into ocus through manipulating the DOF would be dicult, i only because the woods where these erns grow is quite dark.
I point this out because I believe that ocus stacking or ocus bracketing will (in time) become at least as important to us as HDR or exposure bracketing have up to this point.
Now let’s look at a stacked photograph that is a blending o our dierent photos, each ocused on dierent areas o the scene. As you can see, at least the main subject (the various erns) are in ocus. But notice the erns midway between the ront and back erns are somewhat out o ocus. In s tacked ocus, unless you shoot hundreds o photos, not everything will be in ocus, but you but you can choose what is and what is not in ocus. Here the two groups o erns (ront and back) are in ocus, which makes or a nice eect. As you look at this photo, see how appealing it is to have things in ocus and to be able to look around the scene as opposed to being denied that reedom by having some areas o the photo out o ocus.
Camera makers may eventually even include ocus bracketing as a eature where, perhaps, we ocus on the ront and back areas o any scene or object and the camera produces a series o bracketed photos with the ocus at dierent layers between the two points we set. We would tell the camera how many layers or photos we want. Tis could be very useul, because one o the problems o ocus stacking is taking the photos ast enough to capture the images beore changes in lighting, etc. set in. So ar, the results I am getting are very ple asing to me. Te example used here gives you some idea o what a stacked photo can look like. In act, urther on we will look at a bunch o stacked photos, so that you can get an idea o what they look like and what subjects lend themselves to ocus stacking.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Focus Stacking: An Example Focus Stacking Software
Tere are a number o sotware applications that do ocus stacking, and probably more will be coming along. I probably don’t have time to learn them all, but at the same time I would like to know which ones work the best or my purposes, which are small to mid-sized stacks o close-up and macro subjects. I only need one g ood one, but to nd that I have had to experiment. Tat being said, here is a brie summary o three o the main contenders, Adobe Photoshop, Zerene Stacker, and Helicon Focus. Perhaps this w ill save you some time and expense. Let me start right o by popping one big bubble, the idea that you can do quality ocus stacking without any ever retouching. No sotware I have tried will do that, and here is the main reason why. Focus stacking (short o an innite-numbered stack) by denition leaves out o perect ocus whatever areas are between the ocus l ayers. I you have layers, you have something between the m that is not in perect ocus, theoretically at least. I you want a perectly smooth image, one with nothing let out, well, that is your standard traditional photo. However, the traditional photo has a single point o ocus. Even a very wide-angle lens, while having everything more in ocus than narrower lenses, still has areas o ocus and areas out-o-ocus. Tat is the reality. Focus stacking by denition is a orm o sampling, just like we sample sound or video rames. Streaming them together (digitally) produces the eect o seamless music or motion pictures, but in reality they are still a series o samples that only give us the impression o seamlessness. We live in a world o impressions. Tereore no ocus-stacking sotware will be without artiacts, however small or dicult to detect they might be. Even i you string 200 layers o images together, there will be minute discrepancies, although we may not be able to detect them with the unaided eye. Few o us may want to do 200-layer stacks, as they generally require a studio, a ocus rail, perhaps lights, etc. Many o us want to be out in the meadows and woods, not in the studio. My point is that to stack ocus and expect no faws is an oxymoron, conceptually. Te question is what sotware gives me what I need with the least amount o compromise. With that in mind, let’s look at three o the major ocus-stacking applications: Adobe Photoshop CS5 (CS5) Zerene Stacker 1.2 (ZS) Helicon Focus 5.1 (HF) Note the acronyms, which I will be us ing in this article. All three o these applications are capable o producing acceptable stacked images that range in quality rom moderate to exceptional. As mentioned, none o this stacking sotware is equivalent to a point-and-shoot camera, in that you press a button and can count on a perect or even a good stacked
Stacked Photo and experience will be required, how much depends upon how perect a stack will satisy you. I can testiy that any search or perection will lead to a greater expenditure o time, learning, and experience. And stacked photos that we nd satisying today probably will not satisy us a little arther down the road. Tere is both a learning and a perception curve to ocus stacking in my experience. The Time it Takes
Let’s start with time. How long does it take to align and blend a stack o images in these three programs? Both Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus are ast, really, really ast compared to Adobe Photoshop CS4/CS5. I anything, Photoshop CS5 takes longer than CS4. For example, a stack o 8 images took between 30-40 seconds in both ZS and HF, but took over 28 minutes in CS5. Folks, that is a big dierence! And a stack o 36 photos in CS5 sent me to bed and in the morning it was still chugging away. I nally just gave up and shut down the program. So, i you want real-time results in this lietime, Photoshop CS5 is probably not the program to use. Processing stacked photos at the end o the day is time consuming and requires a certain amount o care and awareness. I you already own Photoshop, play around with short stacks to see the results, but i you are serious about ocus stacking, you will be old beore your stacks process. At my age I don’t have that kind o time. Pricing (in U.S. dollars) Adobe Photoshop CS5 (Mac and PC) Well, at a cost o some $660, Photoshop CS5 once again brings up the rear. You You can photo stack in both Photoshop CS4 and CS5, but the results in CS4 really are poor. In CS5, Adobe has nally gotten into the ballpark with ZS and HF, but still is listed third in my book due to its tendency to warp the image somewhat. At $660, ew o us will spring or that just to stack ocus. O course, i we already have CS5, check it out.
As or pricing or Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus, they are less expensive that Photoshop, but have caveats o their own. For example, Zerene Focus oers the ollowing: Proessional Edition $289 Personal Edition $89 Student Edition $39 For Helicon Focus, it is a little more complicated: Helicon Focus Lite (1-year license) $30 Helicon Focus Lite (Unlimited license) $115 Helicon Focus Pro (1-year license) $55 Helicon Focus Pro (Unlimited license) $200 Helicon Focus Pro X64 (Unlimited license) $250
The Art of Focus Stacking
Focus Stacking: An Example
Example Stacked Photo with Zerene Stacker, PMax
The Fine Print: Zerene Stacker (PC only)
Helicon Focus
With Zerene Stacker any version gets you unlimited use or that version in perpetuity and its upgrades ree. I a new version comes up, ZS says “When version 2.0 becomes available, new licenses will be made available at attractive upgrade pricing.”
HF is the astest o the applications I have tested, i only because it accepts RAW (native) ormat, which shaves some time o the process and simplies it a bit or me. Also, a lot o time and consideration has gone into creating Helicon Focus and this sotware is o proessional quality and eel. It is easy to use.
As ar as I can tell, all versions are identical. Tere are no dierences between levels. Tey state that the proessional version is or those who use it to make money, the personal or those who use it or satisaction, and the student version is or individuals enrolled in a degree or certicate program. You can use ZS on more than one computer as ar as I understand. The Fine Print: Helicon Focus (PC Only)
With HF, it is more complicated. You can buy in cheaper than ZS, but the license only lasts a year. I doubt any o us like that idea. So, the HF Pro version at $200 gets you into the game and provides the retouching unctions batch more, and some other eature which are not in the “Lite” version. Well, I already stated that all o these s tacking sot ware require some retouching rom time to time, so (IMO) that option does not work or me. So I had to buy the $250 version or the reasons just given AND because that is the only version that takes advantage o the 64-bit chip on my PC and or those o you with 32bit PCs, to overcome the 3Gb address space or Windows 32-bit applications. HF does allow you to use it on up to our computers, as long as you only use one computer at a time. The Software Results
Tis is the section that is most important, but also where it gets more complicated. All three programs can produce acceptable results, with Photoshop coming in third every time, and Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus vying or top dog, depending on the attributes o a particular stack. Adobe Photoshop CS5 I previously said that unlike Photoshop CS4, which did not produce acceptable results much o the time, that CS5 is very much better. It is better, aside rom a tendency to actually warp the entire photo, changing the shape o whatever fower, bug, etc. you are working with at times. For many wild things, the amount o change is not enough to totally reject the photo, but or product photography the ‘warping’ is denitely not acceptable. And the cost o the sotware is something to consider, but most o all CS5’s inability to process stacks in a timely manner makes it not usable or me, at least or stacks o any size. Tereore I cannot recommend this sotware at this time or ocus stacking, although Adobe has made improvements between CS4 and CS5.
You can drag and drop your les into HF or just point to a older and have them loaded. I have not ound an easy way to select all the les in a older in a fash, so i you know how to do that, let me know. Right now I have to select the rst, hold down the shit key, and select the last, but it should be much easier to select the whole group. HF oers two stacking methods, Method-A and Method-B, but Method-B seems to be the only one I am using so ar that works as I like it, since it produces the sharpest results. Method-A is said to work with contrast only, but I have not ound it useul yet. And HF is ast, which is wonderul. Te results are very proessional, but like all ocus stacking sotware oten need touching up. HF does provide retouching sotware, but only in the more expensive versions. Te retouch eature in HF is (or me) awkward and not nearly as intuitive to use as Zerene Stacker, so that is a disappointment. It does work, but I nd mysel not looking orward to using it with joy. HF ocus supports ProPhotoRGB and the color seems to be good. Helicon Focus is a solid program o proessional quality and I can highly recommend it, although I nd mysel preerring Zerene Stacker most o the time, or reasons to be presented now. Zerene Stacker
Zerene Stacker, like Helicon Focus, is ast, easy-to-use, and o a proessional build. And Zerene Stacker accepts whatever color space you send it (like ProPhotoRGB) and returns the result in the same space. Like HF, Zerene Stacker oers two stacking methods, both o which I nd very useul. Te rst, PMax does an incredible job o stacking photos that have ne detail. Te bristles and hairs on insects and plants are intelligently handled by PMax, better than either CS5 or HF. Tat is the good news. Te bad news is that this greater denition comes at the price o some added noise in the photo and some loss o more subtle color. For many photos, this noise is not signicant, but or some it is. Te loss o subtle color is also not important, unless you are looking at something like the tiniest color shit, in which case something is lost. I want to state this but, in practice, I tend to not mind these problems as they are minimal or most o my work. Tereore I nd that I use PMax most o the time now because it gives me the kind o stacked look I want, my idea o what a stacked photo should look like. When there is too much noise, then I run the second method, DMap.
The Art of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking ectly. It has the downside o (at times) having more artiacts than does PMax, so photos done in DMap may require some retouching. As mentioned, I tend to use PMax unless I am unhappy with the result, in which case I send it to DMap. Te retouching eature in Zerene Stacker is a brilliant achievement, so easy to use and intuitive that my rst thought was “Why in the world has Adobe not bought this technology, sent Rik Littleeld to the Bahamas or lie, and included it in Photoshop”. With ZS, you just move through your stack, nd the rame with the part o the image as you want it, and just paint with a brush over the original. In a second, it’s perect. With Zerene Stacker, you can drag and drop les into the program and just run the stacker. Summary As mentioned, I am dumbounded at the lack o attention Photoshop has given ocus stacking in terms o speed and results. Tat being said, both Helicon Focus and Zerene Focus do an excellent job at stacking photos. Either one will give you good results.
Personally I tend to use Zerene Stacker or the ollowing reasons: It is much less expensive or the ull version. It provides two methods that I actually use (with HF, I use only one), and the PMax method in ZS (although not perect) is unique to this kind o sotware, as ar as I know. No one el se oers it. No one gets e very hair on the insect, sort-o-thing. Te retouching eature in ZS is worth the price o admission by itsel. I can x a nished photo that has a couple o artiacts in seconds and have a perect image. And last, the support rom ZS has been fawless. Let me end by reiterating my opening caution, that no ocus-stacking sotware is as simple as point-and-shoot or press-a-button. I you are serious about ocus stacking, you will have to do some retouching and ddling with stacks. Luckily both Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker allow you to do this. I would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions, as I am still very much on a learning curve here, although is seems to be an exponential curve. I you want backup photos or this, I could put some together showing what each o these programs can and cannot do. ZS and HF have taken some o the adventure out o ocus stacking. With Abode Photoshop CS4, getting a good stacked photo was like looking or 4-lea clovers. ZS and HF let us get one almost every time.
Here are six comparison images using Helicon Focus (Method B) and Zerene Stacker (PMax). Hopeully, you can see or yourselves the good, bad, and ugly in the various photos. For each photo, the Zerene Stacker is shown rst, ollowed by the same image in Helicon Focus. No retouching was done, although some minimal exposure adjustments and some sharpening were added to all.
Zerene Stacker, PMax
Helicon Focus, Method B, Radius 16, Smoothing 1
The Art of Focus Stacking
Zerene Stacker, PMax
Helicon Focus, Method B, Radius 16, Smoothing 1
The Art of Focus Stacking
Zerene Stacker, PMax
Helicon Focus, Method B, Radius 16, Smoothing 1
The Art of Focus Stacking
Zerene Stacker, PMax
Helicon Focus, Method B, Radius 16, Smoothing 1
The Art of Focus Stacking
12-Stack Photo
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Te ollowing six two-page spreads will really let you know whether you want to play around with ocus stacking or not. Going in, you should know upront what the advantages and disadvantages o ocus stacking are. Any stacked photo, in particular a short stack, is at best a comprise, an attempt to blend the sharper parts o a series o photos into a single photo. As with all compromises, the complete truth by denition is violated, hopeully in as ew ways as possible, but some inormation is lost because we are selecting layers o the photo rather than a single shot. Tis is why I say that short-stacked photos are the photographer’s ‘impression’ o the subject. Tey combine a series o desirable photo layer/highlights into a single photo. As ocus stackers, we choose to create an artully-fawed photo that gives a more desirable impression that any single-ocus photo. Tat is the theory and this is where the art comes in. Te art o ocus stacking is to sample ocus eectively so that the nished photo provides more inormation than any single-layer photo might. And by ‘inormation’, I don’t mean just the pixels in the photo. A single-shot traditional photo oers that. Focus stacking (short-stack) attempts to sample the subject selectively, bringing bringing dierent areas o the photo into h igher ocus, and ignoring the rest. Beginning ocus stackers naturally try to get everything they can into ocus, because it is a relie rom traditional photos that dictate one main ocus area. It is un to nally see all that ocus clarity. But as time goes by, just pure ocus (like with a rack) is not only very time consuming, but is not al ways satisying. In addition, the existence o artiacts at close inspection can be discouraging. In the end, ocus stacking is impressionistic, a creative eort on our part to present a subject as we experience it. In the ollowing pages one stacked photo is compared at dierent stacking rates to an un-stacked traditional photo. For this example, I am using a 12-stacked photo taken in the wild, but with the help o a light tent to make sure that no wind was moving the subject, which in this case is the Dogtooth Violet (also called “rout Lily”), Lily”), one o our most lovely spring fowers. Tis one is getting ready to open. Te orest foors are literally covered with the mottled leaves o this plant in springtime, and rom all those leaves some smaller number o fowers bloom each year. welve stacks is a bunch, enough to embrace quite a wide range, rom the ront lea tips in the close oreground, the fower itsel, to the back lea leaning the other way – quite a reach. At rst glance, things are in ocus, rom the ront to the back. Note the tips o the leaves, the top o the fower, the stems, and even some o the dry tree leaves making up the background which I purposely did not drill down on, preerring some out-o-ocus areas. Te photo looks pretty good. I have not color corrected it
er, the stems, and even some o the dry tree leaves making up the background which I purposely did not drill down on, preerring some out-o-ocus areas. Te photo looks pretty good. I have not color corrected it or anything else, other than a little bit o sharpening. I will be showing you three separate photos. Te rst will be the 12-stack photo, the next will be a shorter stack o our o the photos rom the 12-stack shot, se lected based on getting as much o the photo in ocus as a 4-stack will allow, and the last photo is a traditional non-stacked photo or comparison. For each photo, there will be two-2-page spread, with the entire photo on the right, and close-up photos o the fower head and stem on the let side. Tere are six two-page spreads to look at, so take your time and look closely or this is the kind o compromise you will have to get used to i you are interested in ocus stacking using a short stack. The Impression
Looking at the photo on the right, the impression is o a woodland fower remarkably in ocus, rom the tip o the ront leaves (reaching out toward you), to the tip o the back lea, leaning quite away rom the fower. And the fower itsel is sharp, or so is the impression. And impression is what short stacking is all about. Now work through the next twelve pages and photos, noting that in reality parts o the photo suer blurring rom the ocus-stacking process itsel. As mentioned, this is no wind here, at least that I could see. I am using Adobe Photoshop CS4 to align and blend the stack, so there may be other sotware that can do a better job o avoiding artiacts. But no sotware can avoid generating artiacts, unless you want to use a rack mounted camera and shoot 100+ photos or each stacked photo. Even then there will be problems. I your resulting stacked photo has too many artiacts, try playing with the stack, stacking dierent combinations, choosing layers which have the things you most want in ocus. Tis takes time, so take the time to explore. You will be surprised at how you can pull a good stacked photo out o what appeared as a throw-away. And i there are still pesky blurred areas o a photo you really l ove, take it into Photoshop and use the Clone Stamp tool to careully repair the blur. For those special shots, it is worth the eort. The Three People to Impress
Tey are, o course, “Me, Mysel, and I,” the ones who really care about my photos. My wie, kids, and riends only want to see a very ew photographs. Ater maybe ten or twelve, they start to look around. And I have 70,000 plus. Other photographers like this, but want to change that, etc. Tis leaves just me as the one who sees it all, takes the photos, stacks them, and enjoys them. I I am happy with a photo, warts and all, that is enough.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Close-up of 12-Stack Photo
12-stack Photo Artifacts
Look careully along both the right and let sides o the fower s tem. See the uzzy out-o-ocus areas. Tese were not caused by movement, but are artiacts o the articial aligning and blending o so many stacks.
12-Stack Photo
The Art of Focus Stacking
Close-up of 12-Stack Photo
12-Stack Photo 12-stack Photo Artifacts
Look careully on both sides where the fower joins the top o the stem. See the blurry areas on both sides. Also notice the blurred tip o the right end o the fower at the bottom.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Close-up of 4-Stack Photo
4-Stack Photo 4-stack Photo Artifacts
Look careully along both the right and let sides o the fower stem. See the uzzy out-o-ocus areas, although less then the 12-stack version.. Tese were not caused by movement, but are artiacts o the articial aligning and blending o so many stacks.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Close-up of 4-Stack Photo
4-Stack Photo
4-stack Photo Artifacts
Look careully on both sides where the fower joins the top o the stem. See the blurry areas on both sides. Also notice the blurred tip o the right end o the fower at the bottom. About the same as the 12-stack version.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Close-up of Traditional One-shot Photo
Traditional One-shot Photo Traditional 1-shot Photo
Tere are no artiact blurs in this photo, but the entire stem and lea behind it is blurred.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Close-up of Traditional One-shot Photo
Traditional One-shot Photo
Traditional 1-shot Photo
Tere are no artiact blurs in this photo. Te fower is reasonably in ocus, moreso around where the fower joinds the stem. Te bottom o the fower is less in ocus as you can see.
The Art of Focus Stacking
A ligning thwith e StaFocus ck CanStacking Produce Crazy-looking Results Problems
C rop It anPhoto d You Get a Normal Photo Cropped
Whatever It Takes
Don’t ask me w hy Photoshop decided to bend over backward to align this stack like this, causing this odd-shaped pattern to emerge. Te program has a mind o its own and this kind o result is common using the “Align” “Align” command. In some cases, the twisted shape actaully aects the entire photo, widening or shortening the image. However, just crop the nished photo and it looks pretty nornal. Tis photo has not been retouched.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Another Pa tternFocus from tStacking he Aligning Process Problems with
C rop It anPhoto d You Get a Normal Photo Cropped
Twisted
Here is another example o the gyrations that the Photoshop align process sometimes goes through to line up all the layers o the stack. Just crop the nished photo and it looks pretty nornal. Tis photo has not been retouched..
The Art of Focus Stacking
S t an d A l i g n MaFocus rks Problems with Stacking
C rop It anPhoto d You Get a Normal Photo Cropped
Normal Align Marks
Notice the marks on all our edges o this photo. Tey look like indentations. You will nd these on almost every stacked photo and they are the result o the program’s aligning unction as it positions layer over layer and orces them to line up. Tey can take many orms, and aside rom the indentation-like marks, you oten will also have blurred or out-o-ocus areas running along the border. otally otally normal. You just have to crop them out.
The Art of Focus Stacking
A FoPhoto cus Too FarNear Focus One with
Focus Limits
I wanted to pick up the branch in the ront, but also the rose h ip in the back. Problem is that in this case there are several inches or more o distance between the ront matter and the back. Te resulting composite was just too much o a stretch. Te moral o the story is: choose your limits, i you expect them to converge. Tis photo did not make it.
N o Way tPhoto o Save- Too This Many PhotoArtifactgs Stacked
The Art of Focus Stacking
Resamplinwith g StaFocus cks Stacking Problems
Solution:Photo Shortewith n theFewer StackFrames Stacked
Use a Shorter Stack
Just because you took six photos does not mean you have to put all six in the stack. In this case, I ran the ull stack, but look at the halos around the upper leaves. No good. Tere was obviously either wind or to much perspective change in ocusing. By dropping the last ew layers, I lose ocus in the lower stem, but mostly get rid o the halos on the leaves. I can always say that the lower stem is good bokah!
Movement Causes Artifacts
Focus Stacking is primarily or still lie photography, where nothing is moving. Movement causes artiacts in the nished photo that (usually) cannot be remedied, with the result that the photo is not considered satisactory. Tis is not to say that ocus stacking should not be used or nature photography with live subjects, but just that you want to catch your critters at rest, holding a pose long enough or you to shoot a ew rames at dierent ocus points. Focus stacking with moving subjects can make or interesting impressionistic or expressionistic photos, but most o these would all into the category o artistic experimentation rather than nature photography.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Chhoatnogw esith Out-of-Focus Stem Siunbgllte P
Small Gains On the let is a photo with no ocus stacking. Nice, but I want to add just a little more depth o eld, so I make a short stack.
On the right is the result, with increased ocus up top, but still some nice out-o-ocus area in the lower stem. Focus stacking need not be at terminator orce, but can be use gently or enhancement.
E-nScta hcakncPeho thteo F 2 Boricnugss More of Stem in Focus
The Art of Focus Stacking
F oreground MaFocus terial Stacking Problems with
Layer 1
N otice Artin ifaStacked ct in UppPhoto er-midRequires dle Right Cropping S i de Artifacts
Layer 2
Intervening Matter
Front Matter
Tere are two problems here, and only urther cropping will correct them. In the red boxes is a branch in the oreground, and this branch moves dramatically between the two layers, which suggests it is too ar out ront o the wild leek shoots that are just coming up.
I have learned to inspect my shot careully beore I begin shooting to see i there is any intervening matter. I there is something between the camera and the subject:
In the resulting composite, the two branches don’t align but blur and smear on the photo. Also note that in the ront lower-let corner is a stick that I ailed to get in ocus. Not good. One solution is to crop out the bad parts, but some orethought on my part would have avoided this.
(1) Move the camera. (2) I not destructive, careully remove whatever is obstructing the view. (3) Oten I gently bend back branches (withough breaking them) until they are just out o the shot. (4) I don’t do invasive removal, like uprooting plants, bulldozing, or detonations.
Possible Crop
The Art of Focus Stacking
Water isBottom Easy and Surface Reection Shots Stream
Photo of Stream Bed
Two Layers
Clear water makes a great 2-layer stack. Simple shoot one layer with the bottom o the stream in ocus and another with whatever is refected on the top surace, and combine them. Here there is a sunlit stream bed, with overhead trees and blue sky refected on the surace. Te combination allows you to ocus on the bottom or the top refection, making or a creative and interesting eect. No need to align this type o shot, just merge.
Merge (no2-Photo align) ToStack p and Bottom of Water Areas Resulting
Photo of Stream Surface
The Art of Focus Stacking
A nother Bottom Exampland e Surface Reection Shots Stream
Photo of Stream Bed
Merge Two Photos
Here is another example o two photos merged, by with no aligning, since we want to keep the surace image separate rom the image o the bottom o the stream.
Merge The2-Photo m with NStack o Align Resulting
Photo of Stream Surface
The Art of Focus Stacking
Too MuchPhoto FocuLooking s Stacked into Tree Branches - Too Busy
Traditional F oregrounPhoto d and Background Traditional One-shot
The Art of Focus Stacking
All-Focus Not Always Good
I also nd that just because I can bring the whole rame to ocus, does not mean I should or that the resulting photo will look good. Full-rame ocus can be disorienting, such as a case where you are looking through dierent layers o tree branches, and lose all sense o layers and distance, which is just what makes the shot interesting in the rst place. Focus stacking can remove the sense o distance, since the eye is used to having a ocus point and the rest o the image more-or-less out o ocus. Tis can make or an u nusual sense o space and spaciousness, which can either enhance a photo or make it seem claustrophobic. Some scenes are not worth stacking, such as the one show here, exept perhaps to achieve an unusual eect. Also, there are tons o artiacts in the photo on the let.
Roundnor esSpherical s Does NoSurfaces t Short StShow ack WArtifacts ell Round
LSubjects ayers Sta ck W el l with Edges Stack Well
The Art of Focus Stacking
The Dreaded Sphere
I you use rack-mounted ocus, and take micro steps, with dozens o layers, the smoothly rounded objects, like globes, bubbles, and so on can be resolved. But i you are taking a handul o shots, using a short stack, then take caution when you encounter rounded objects. Here is an example: On the right you have a perect subject or ocus stacking, a line o clearly-dened levels, each one that you can ocus on as a layer or your stack. Te result is very satisying. However, on the let are some water droplets on the hood o a car, which hood is not only on an incline, but itsel slightly convex. Notice the outo-ocus (OOF) areas in the water droplets. Tis is because the smooth curvature o the droplets, each dierent, would require micro ocusing (many, many layers) to capture all the possibilities in the curvature. With ours short-stack approach, sampling areas, by denition we will miss the in-between areas, with the resultant OOF blur. Keep this in mind.
Round-Subjects shaped, bwith ut wiEdges th CleaStack r LayeWell rs Round
M ichigan O rchid witRequire h Globe-ashLarger aped FStack lower Spherical Subjects
The Art of Focus Stacking
Another Example
Te pine cone on the let has a round shape, but there is plenty to ocus on and highlight. However, the Michigan orchid below has a large round-shaped fower, so this shot required MORE than average layers in order not to have blurred spots on the curvature.
Additional Focus-stacking Considerations The Photographer
The Art of Focus Stacking Playing With Stacks
Minimal Frames
Back on the computer, ater a day’s shoot, you process a stack in Photoshop and look at the results. Some stacks work and some have too many artiacts, motion that you didn’t see at the time, areas that Photoshop could not distinguish properly, etc.
Forget about the whole sequence. Go into the layers and nd just the layers that best put the subject into ocus. Use those, oten just two or three. You end up with a more normal photograph, but one with the ess ential subject remarkably in ocus. Tis is still better than just the one area in ocus o a traditional DOF photo.
Some stacks are simply beyond use or repair, but most are not, so don’t just give up on a stack because at rst glance it has problems. ry to see what is causing the problem. Here are some things you should check out beore giving up on a stack.
Run It Again
sometimes i I just run the whole stack again, i will get a good result. I have not idea why this is so, but it is worth a try i you love the subject.
Inherently Flawed
Don’t Forget the Traditional Photo
Don’t orget that unless you are on a ocus rack and taking a huge number o photos under essentially laboratory conditions that photostacking, by denition, is fawed. What I mean by that is: because ocusing uses a short-stack means, you are sampling the ocus here and there rather than seamlessly photographing and merging the entire rame. By design, you are leaving out many areas o the photo which are not treated as a ocus point. Tis is a choice you make.
And as a last result, use a single rame. Forget about stacking. One virtue o taking bracketed ocus shots is that, more oten than not, at least one o the rames will be the shot you would have taken i you only had one shot – the traditional photo with one point o ocus. When all else does not work, usually there is a single photo that will do the job.
An Art, Not a Science
Tere will be areas that are (how ever so slightly) out o ocus. Te art o ocus stacking is to make these areas as unobtrusive as possible, selecting what you eel are the key areas in the photo that tell the story as you see it, areas that you want to be in sharp ocus. Focus stacking, at least in my experience, is more o an art rather than a science. Slavishly using a ocus rack to obtain perect ocus through a stack o hundred or so photos simply is not interesting to me, and way too time consuming. I am happy to look at the deep stack photos that others make. Most o all, rack-ocusing is more su ited to the studio and not the woods and elds. I need to be out there in nature and without too much gear. Te art in ocus stacking is learning how to give your impression o a subject in a e w careully-chosen rames, merging them into a single unied photo that expresses that impression. Tat is why ocus stacking is an art and not a science. The Bad Frame
Did you include a rame that does not belong in the series by mistake? I am surprised at how oten I manage to do this and, o course, a rame rom a dierent se ries will seriously screw up a stack and make it appear unusable. Too Many Frames
Just because you took ten rames o the subject does not mean you need all ten or that all ten will resolve, especially when the result shows problems. ry ry dropping layers, usually rom the back where they matter least and can serve as bokah (nicely out o ocus). Shorten the stack and run it again. Oten the result can be dierent enough to save the shot.
In summary, it is well worth it to spend some time tinkering with the stack beore you abandon the shot, especially i it is a photo you really like. Short Stacks for Macro, Not Micro
How close is too close? Tat is a question you will nd yoursel answering as you get into ocus stacking. O course, it depends a lot on what lens you are using, but I have ound that trying to ocus on too tiny a part or fower generally shows poor results. Let’s take some examples. Te advantage o traditional one-shot photography is that you don’t have artiacts, but unless you are photographing a two dimensional subject (like a page rom the newspaper) and even then, unless that newspaper is fat and exactly parallel to the plane o the camera’s sensor, you automatically have distortion rom perspective. Tat perspective puts one area o the photo in ocus and throws another out o ocus to some degree. O course the eternal quest or the holy grail o depth-oeld by photographers meets with the disappointment as diraction exacts its toll o resolution at smaller apertures, thus the main reason or ocus stacking. Yet ocus stacking, as we have pointed out, cannot but ail to capture every bit o the subject, but it can manage to ail successully i we are careul, resulting in a photo that has the appearance o real depth o eld.
The Photographer Additional Focus-stacking Focus-stacking Considerations Considerations
The Art of Focus Stacking Landscapes
Looking Close
Focus stacking is probably more successul in enhancing ocus in non-close-up shots like mid-range and distant subjects such as landscapes, where adding even a little more depth o eld dramatically enhances the shot. Look at the landscape shots elsewhere in this books or an example o this
I you look very closely at any stacked photo, you can nd its faws, however minute. Tis is the nature o the beast and just part o the deal when you use short stacks. Most such faws are usually embraced by the overall enhanced sharpness o the stacked photo and don’t stand out. Some are glaring and cause the photo to be rejected. Still others can be xed in Photoshop easily, i they are ew. I they are legion, there is not much you can do but enjoy it in the abstract, faws and all. Ten you really are really impressionist! Frankly I am continually amazed at how well most stacked photos work out i you take some care with the original shots.
Close-up, Macro, and Micro Where ocus stacking breaks down most visibly is in extreme close-up shots, what we would call micro, rather than macro shots. When you get this close, you really do need a ocusing rail, studio, lights, and all o that. You can get great shots with rail and micro-stepping the ocus, but or me this is a whole other kind o photography than that being presented here. It really is a science, and not so much an art, although art is involved there too. Not for Micro Work
For example, shooting a very tiny fower. Being so close to a subject shows not only any weakness in the lens, but also weakness in the technique o short-stack ocus photography. By not covering every millimeter o that scene, we are opening ourselves up to tiny movements o wind and simply extremes o perspective within the subject matter itsel. Te result is that artiacts are more visible up close than when we stand back, just l ike some o the French Impressionist painters like Monet or Pissarro, which are best viewed rom a ew eet back, rather than right up close. Te artiacts or artice is absorbed at a distance, but obvious when you get too close. Te same goes or ocus stacking that is not rail mounted and studio bound. I nd this out by trial and error. Sometimes I can get away with a lot and at other times, the technique itsel shows its faws. Te take away is there are limits to what short-stack ocusing will allow. As you get closer and closer, going rom close-up photography to macro photography, or even closer to micro photography, you need more precise control, preerably in exact micro increments to get results. Impressionist ocus sampling as we are discussing here doesn’t cut it. We would need to be more exact than that. As mentioned, the science o stepped-rail ocusing does not interest me, so I reer you to Google, where you can nd any number o tutorials on rail stacks – requiring both science and art. Striking photographs, yes, but sometimes a little too ‘clinical’ or my taste.
Single Frame (notice distance is blurry)
Stacked Photo (notice more clarity througout)
The Art of Focus Stacking
Another Example The pine cone on the left has a round shape, but there is plenty to focus on and highlight. However, the Michigan orchid below has a large round-shaped fower, so this shot required MORE than average layers in order not to have blurred spots on the curvature.
Entire Stack Processed (note blurry areas)
Partial Stack (note: clarity achieved by fewer photos)
The Art of Focus Stacking
Stacked Focus of Small Flower (note artifacts)
Standard Photo Not Stacked (note more clarity)
The Art of Focus Stacking
Tradition One-shot Photo (distance is not clear)
Stacked Photo (much more clarity throughout)
The Art of Focus Stacking
Equipment for Close-up and Macro Photography
Macro and Close-up Equipment
Tis section will be a painul read or many o you. Equipment is expensive, and it seems that all beginners start out trying to cut corners and end up paying more or their stu than proessionals, because they buy the cheap stu, are unhappy with it, and end up getting the good stu too, thus buying twice. I certainly did this and regret it to this day. All the pros advised me to just buy the good stu right o, but I did not listen. Ater all, I knew best, and was not sure that this more detailed photography stu was something I would really get into, so I bought cheap, and then bought it all again. Te smart money buys the good stu and, i you don’t like photography, you can actually sell the good brands and get some money back. I cringe when I come across some o my early tripods that I bought trying to save a dime, and then ultimately ound clumsy, heavy, and ugly. Tey are worth nothing and sit unused (and unsalable!), taking up storage space. Tereore, I am only going to tell you about the good stu and why it is worth the money. You make up your own mind and ollow your own budget. As mentioned, I didn’t listen, and it cost me plenty, not to mention the suering and discouragement o using poor equipment, which is priceless.
Tripods Are Key Te long and the short o it is that you need a tripod to do accurate ocus stacking. I know there are a ew photographers out there who claim to ocus stacks handheld, but that is why there are ew o them. Personally I would not (could not) do ocus stacking without a good tripod. You not only need a tripod, you need a GOOD tripod. I bought three cheap ones beore I had the common sense to get one good one. Te cheap ones are in storage. As mentioned, I can’t even sell them, so do yoursel a avor and get a decent tripod.
And, i you are a hiker or woods-walker, get a light tripod, preerable one made with carbon-ber legs on it. A good tripod becomes like a third arm to a macro shooter. I seldom hit the elds without one. These Photographs
Pictured here is the primary Nikon equipment I use most o the time: Nikon D3s and Nikon D3x bodies, each sh own here with a Voigtlander Voigtlander 125mm /2.5 APO-Lanthar lens, a Markins Q3 Ball-Head, MC-30 Remote Release, and setting on Gitzo carbon-ber tripods G2531 (3-leg) and F1228 (4-legs and center column). Tese tripods and ball heads are as light as possible, yet sturdy enough to hold the quite-heavy nikon cameras and lenses.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Equipment for Close-up and Macro Photography
The Art of Focus Stacking
Ball Head
Another item that you don’t want to cheap-out on is a good ball head or the tripod on which your camera sits. I should know; I have a whole shel o lousy ball heads that I bought trying to avoid buying one good one. I have ones with a pistol-grip handle, ones with two handles, etc., a total waste o time and money. Ball heads are expensive, and the good ones are brands like Really Right Stu (RSS), Kirk, ArcaSwiss, and Markins. I use the Markins Q-Ball Q3 (shown on right), which sells on Ebay or about $260, and I eel that are every bit as good as the much more expensive kinds. L-Bracket
I hate to keep laying these essentials on you, because it can be very discouraging to the pocket-book, but it is best to know the truth sooner, than later: You need an L-bracket on your camera. An L-Bracket mounts on your camera body and allows you to quickly change rom the standard horizontal position to vertical position. Te ones shown here are on the lower-lethand side (and base) o each camera. camera. For me, the L-bracket is essential, because I l ike to shoot vertically most o the time, but have to sw itch in a moment to horizontal or a wider shot. I use Kirk Enterprise LBracket and plates. Tey are excellent. Quick-release Clamps
It is not enough to have a ball head on your tripod. You also have to be able to get your camera on and o the tripod. You can screw it on and o, but that takes a lot o time and sooner or later you are gonna’ mess up the threads in the base o your camera, and have a real problem on your hands. You need to be able to get that camera on and o the tripod in seconds, not minutes o umbling with thumb screws. My quick-release o choice is the Swiss-Arca style, as used by Kirk Enterprises, Really-Right Stu, and o course Swiss Arca-style plates. You You need one. Te quick release shown here are built into the Markins ball head and receive the L-brackets, which are thumb-tightened on. Remote Shutter Release
Another (or me) essential accessory is the remote shutter release, which attaches to the camera and allows me to release the camera without having to touch the camera’s shutter-release button and potentially cause vibrations. Remote shutter release cords or Nikon are available on Ebay or very little, and are more than a little helpul. Tey can be seen here dangling rom the right side o the cameras.
Camera Bodies
Depth of Field Preview
Tere actually are many cameras that will do a good job. Ultimately, ater you nd you like photography, you want a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Refex) camera, with a 100% viewnder (shows the whole image, not just most o it), with a large LCD preview window, and preerably with mirror lockup (will explain in a moment). Another eature I could NO do without is the ability to see a histogram o the RGB levels on the LCD at the rear o the camera body. Let me go over all o this in more detail.
How wide open or not your lens diaphragm is determines your depth o eld. I the lens is wide open (smallest aperture number, like F/2.8), you have the most light-gathering ability or that particular lens, but your Depth-o-Field (DOF) will be razor thin. In other words, aside rom one plane in ocus, everything else is out-o-ocus. When your lens is closed down to the smallest apertures (highest aperture number, like /22), you have the least light coming into the lens, but the greatest DOF. DOF.
For mysel, I love Nikon cameras, but Canon, Panasonic, Sony, and others also make ne DSLRs. It is just that Nikon cameras are better looking and, well, just better.
Suit yoursel.
When you look through the viewnder o your camera or a preview o a shot, the lens is always orced wide open, so you get a very bright image, which is needed to ocus properly. However, when you actually take the photo, your lens will be automatically stopped down to the actual aperture you set, and the photo taken. Tat actual aperture may be so small (and dark) to your eye, that you could not see well to ocus, which is why the viewnder always shows the lens wide open.
Viewnders DSLR cameras oer viewnders that are larger and smaller, meaning that some cameras show most (but not all o the rame), while better ones do show all o it. I you can, get a camera that will show ALL o the rame, a viewnder that also is as clear and bright as possible. I would not consider trying to do ocus stacking using a camera with only an LCD preview window, as in: a camera without a real viewnder. You You will be doing all o your work looking through the viewnder, so get a camera with a large clear viewnder. Tat is my point.
When you look through the viewnder o the camera and ocus on your subject, you can see where your ocus is, o course, but not how much more (the DOF) o the object is also on ocus. Pressing the DOF Preview button on a camera stops the lens down to whatever aperture you have set, and allows you to see (although oten in dim light) exactly how much o the total object is in ocus – your depth o eld. So, while not a show-stopper, a DOF Preview button is VERY helpul to the close-up photographer. Cameras with a mirror-lock up are to be preerred because it allows you to lock the mirror up beore the shot. Other wise the slap o the mirror can cause vibrations that resonate through the camera body and blur the image you are trying to take. Ready to Rock
Given all the above equipment, you have what you need to hit the trails and stack photos. You might also want to decide how much ‘stu’ you want to carry with you through the woods and over hill and dale. Tings get really heavy However, especially in ocus stacking, you can need to know ast ater a mile or so. And I am talking about what you how much DOF eld you already have. I you already have want to carry ASIDE rom your camera, ball head, lens, and enough DOF, perhaps you don’t need to ocus stack or this tripod, which you will probably want to have with you at all photo. Some o the better cameras have a Depth-o-Field times. (DOF) Preview button, which can be a great help, espe cially in close-up and macro photography, where you want to know how much o that bug or fower actually is already in
Equipment for Close-up and Macro Photography
The Art of Focus Stacking Close-up and macro lenses generally are labeled as such, using the words “macro” “macro” or “micro,” so you need to dierentiate between (or example) a 105mm (portrait) lens rom a 105mm (macro) lens, although the macro lens can also shoot portraits, but not vice versa. A portrait 105mm lens will not shoot macro subjects because its closest-ocus distance is too ar away or close work. You can’t get close enough to your subjects . So, you will probably want to get yoursel a lens with at least some macro capability. Te Quest or Depth o Field As long as there have been cameras and lenses, photographers have struggled to achieve greater depth o eld (DOF). When a lens is wide open, the DOF is very shallow, which means that, at best, you can expect to have sharp ocus only in one plane o the photo. Te rest o the rame will be more or less out o ocus. As we close down the lens (smaller openings), we achieve greater and greater DOF until a point is reached where the eects o diraction set in and begin to destroy the overall sharpness o the photo. So photographers are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, trapped by almost no DOF at wide apertures or loss o sharpness when stopped down too ar. Tat has been the traditional problem.
Common Macro Lenses
The Lens Is the Thing
In the above photo are ten lenses commonly used or macro and close-up work. Most, but not all, are Nikon lenses. Te one marked “J” consists o two lenses stacked together to make higher magnication, as listed below. For my work, the most-used lens is ( I), the Voigtlander 125mm /2.5 APO-Lanthar, a marvel o a lens. Te other incredible lens (IMO) is (C), the 60mm /4 APO lens rom Coastal Optics. Any o the lenses listed above would be good or macro and close-up photography.
Lenses are the heart o photography, IMO, and certainly a good sharp lens is required or decent ocus stacking. And lenses can be expensive, to say the least. Fortunately or macro and close-up photography, where we must ocus manually anyway, we can use older lenses which are readily available at reasonable prices.
A. Micro-Nikkor 105mm F/2.8 VR Lens B. Kiron (Lester A. Dine) 100mm /2.8 Macro C. Coastal Optics 60mm /4.0 APO D. Micro-NikKor 55mm P Auto /3.5 E. Micro-Nikkor 60mm /2.8 D Lens F. Micro-Nikkor 85mm /2.8 PC ilt/Shit Lens G. Micro-Nikkor 70mm-180mm AF /.5-5.6 /.5-5.6 D H. Micro-Nikkor 200m AF F/4 ED-IF Macro I. Micro Voigtlander 125 F/2.5 Macro APO-Lanthar J-1. Micro-Nikkor 105mm P F/4 Macro Lens J-2 Micro-Nikkor 105mm P F/4 Macro Bellows Lens Most close-up and macro photographers use lenses in the short telephoto range, from 60mm to 200mm.
Te kind o lens you need depends on the kind o photographing you intend to do. And while ocus stacking can be used or landscape and intermediate distance photography, much o it tends to be done in close-up and macro photography. Speaking very generally, most macro and close-up work is done with short telephoto lenses, rather than wide angle lenses. raditionally, raditionally, the 50mm lens has been set as the standard, and any lenses smaller than that (24mm, 35mm, etc.) are considered wide angle lenses, while any lenses longer (105mm, 200mm) are considered telephoto lenses. You can do ocus stacking with almost any kind o lens, including wide angle lenses, with the exception perhaps o sheye lenses. And we s hould dierentiate between standard lenses and macro lenses. A macro lens allows you to ocus down to very short distances rom your subject, providing you greater magnication and thus huge images o tiny critters like ants, as well as fowers, leaves, etc. Standard lenses don’t usually have a ocus distance close enough to do macro
We all seem to like to see photos that embrace greater DOF and, with the advent o ocus stacking, this is becoming increasingly possible. Focus stacking has been going on or a long time, but limited to those photographers with enough technical expertise in Photoshop (or other sotware) to painstaking stack layers o photos and then gradually erase part o dierent layers to reveal those areas o greatest sharpness. Each photo becomes a real labor o love and is very time intensive. Now that Photoshop CS4 (and other sotware) can do this more automatically, automatically, ocus stacking is increasing coming into its own. oday oday (using Photoshop as an example), all that is necessary is to place the s tack o photos (at dierent ocus points) as individual layers and apply two commands to that stack, Align and Blend. Te “Align” command automatically works through the layers and aligns the subject in each layer so they line up. Once that is done, the “Blend” layer blends the aligned layers into a single photo, automatically doing what previous photographers laboriously did by hand. Te resulting image is a stacked photo, where the stack o individual photos has been aligned, blended, and reduced to a single photo that
appears to have great depth o eld, i all has been done correctly. Users o Adobe Lightroom 2.0 (and higher) can select a series o photos in Lightroom and send them to Photoshop, where they can be aligned, blended, and automatically saved back into Lightroom, including any adjustments made to the photos in Lightroom. What this means is that ocus stacking is now available to a much wider group o us ers than in the past. Just as HDR-stitched photos have become very popular and have their own special “look,” we can expect to see ocus stacking ollowing on the same path to more common usage. Focus stacking also has a certain look that dierentiates it rom standard photos. Perhaps camera makers like Nikon may include ocus stacking (ocus bracketing) in uture camera bodies, just like they did with aperture bracketing, which is now available. Te user would ocus at the ront and the rear o a subject, indicate how many photos should be stacked, and the camera would do the rest. O course, this sounds like a job that would require a tripod. For shots o live subje cts, in-camera ocus stacking would urther open up this technique, since the stacked series would happen at maximum speed. Later in this text, we will walk through how to use Adobe Photoshop to stack photos. Diffraction
When you camera lens is wide open like F/2.8, there is plenty o room or light to enter, and the parallel rays o light more or less stay parallel, with minimal divergence. However, when you narrow the lens to a tiny opening, like /22, not only does less light come through, but ater passing through a small aperture, parallel light rays begin to diverge, spread out, and interere with one another. At small apertures, the light waves get out o phase with one another, pile up in some areas, and cancel each other out in other areas. Te net result is that they create a pattern o bands called the “diraction “diraction pattern,” and this pattern impacts the photo image we are trying to create, causing it to deteriorate. Te long and the short o it is that no matter how ne a lens you have or how many megapixels your camera sensor has, diraction imposes an absolute resolution limit or photo detail that cannot be gone beyond. Diraction automatically smoothes or blurs detail that we have resolved with the higher /stop o the lens. Web Sites for Lenses
Te best web sites to learn the qualities o lenses (in my opinion) are: Bjørn Rørslett (http://www.naturotogra.com) (http://www.naturotogra.com) Tom Hogan (http://www.bythom.com) (http://www.bythom.com)
Equipment for Close-up and Macro Photography
The Art of Focus Stacking Challenges in Focus Stacking
Focus stacking has a number o distinct challenges, things to keep in mind when you are learning to use this technique, so let’s go over some o them. Near Focus
A continual problem I have is not having the nearest objects in ocus. It is an easy mistake to make. O course, i there is a single object, I don’t miss that. But let’s say I am photographing a bunch o moss or oliage. Many times, ater the shoot when I am back on the computer I nd that I did not get the very most ront matter. It could just be the tip o the top o a ew blades o grass, but it more-or-less ruins the shot. So it pays to back o until the entire eld is out o ocus, and then start in until the rst something appears, and shoot that. Some ocus stackers make a rul e o starting with an out-o-ocus shot. With rear ocus, it usually does not matter. We can just call a missed layer in the rear… bokah. A Focus Too Far
Oten we try to get too much o the entire rame in ocus, and it can be just too ar o a reach. I have learned to let the rear part o the rame remain somewhat out o ocus, so that it either is or resembles bokah. Tis brings out the subject in the oreground that is in ocus all the better, which amounts to traditional photography with just a wee bit more in ocus. You will get a eel or how much you can strong-arm the entire rame into ocus. I nd it is better to pick my battles careully. All-Focus Not Always Good
I also nd that just because I can bring the whole rame to ocus, does not mean I shoul d or that the resulting photo will look good. Full-rame ocus can be disorienting, such as a case where you are looking through dierent layers o tree branches, and lose all sense o layers and distance, which is just what makes the shot interesting in the rst place. Focus stacking can remove the sense o distance, since the eye is used to having a ocus point and the rest o the image more-or-less out o ocus. Tis can make or an unusual sense o space and spaciousness, which can either enhance a photo or make it seem claustrophobic. Some scenes are not worth stacking. Movement
Focus Stacking is primarily or still lie photography, where nothing is moving. Movement causes artiacts in the nished photo that (usually) cannot be remedied, with the result that the photo is not considered satisactory. Tis is not say that ocus stacking should not be used or nature photography with live subjects,
but just that you want to catch your critters at rest, holding a pose long enough or you to shoot a ew rames at dierent ocus points. Focus stacking with moving subjects can make or interesting impressionistic or expressionistic photos, but most o these would all into the category o artistic experimentation rather than nature photography. What’s Missing?
Usually you won’t know until you are home on the computer processing the shots, but here is the rule o thumb: unless you are shooting 30-40 shots on a ocusing rack setup or shooting traditional (one plane o ocus), something will be let out, somewhere. Te skill comes in choosing what you want in ocus and what i let out will never be missed. Just about every stacked photo I have made has weak or missing spots, i not outright blatant artiacts. I generally ignore those who insist every speck has to be in ocus or you are a lousy photographer. Tat’s asking too much and is by denition impossible without shooting hundreds o photos. Every other possibility has one kind o faw or another. With ocus stacking, you just have to pick your battles. And as I like to say, ocus stacking (at least the kind I do) is at heart impressionistic, meaning that I as the photographer choose what to have in ocus and what to ignore. Te result (like all photographs) is my impression o the subject, the sense o it as I see it. Like HDR and other newer techniques, ocus stacking is just another way to present an impression o what you see, in this case by playing with ocus. Further on I will illustrate these various various problems. Program Mode
Most cameras nowadays oer you the option o several shooting modes, typically: Program Mode
Te camera does everything or you and decides what is your best shot. Shutter Priority Mode
You set the shutter to what you need, and the camera does the rest. For example, in sports events, you need a high (ast) shutter speed to capture the action, while in still lie photography, you can use a much lower shutter speed. Aperture Priority Mode
Here you set the aperture yoursel to gather more or less light, and let the camera do the rest. Manual Mode
In this mode, the photographer sets everything, the shutter speed, the aperture, and the ocus. HIS is the mode I generally use and recommend, although you can use any o the above, with the exception o auto-ocus. Setting aperture, shutter speed, and ISO limits becomes natural very quickly.
Equipment for Close-up and Macro Photography
The Art of Focus Stacking Histograms
Program Mode
I have been photographing since around 1954, when my ather loaned me his Kodak Retina 2A camera or a summer trip. O course, I was shooting lm and dad paid or that and the developing. But the expense o lm and the act that you had to wait days to nd out i your photo even came out were great inhibitors to my photography experimentation. Back then, I used a light meter to determine how to set my exposure, but even that device (or my ineptitude) did not guarantee me a decent photo.
Mentioned earlier, most cameras nowadays oer you the option o several shooting modes, typically:
In general, I wouldn’t spend the money or lm/ developing and I hated the guesswork involved in having no immediate visible eedback rom each shot I took. With the advent o digital cameras, all that changed. Now I can aord to shoot as much as I like and the LCD preview screen gives me instant eedback as to whether I am in or out o ocus, whether I have too much or too little light, and so on. Tere is one eature in these new cameras that is VERY important to have, and that is visible histograms that evaluate exposure. Te RGB histograms amount to a 21st century light meter, one built into the camera itsel. Using RGB histograms allows us to tell at a glance wh ether the photo we just shot is exposed properly or our purposes or whether it is too dark or too light. Histograms make it clear whether we have a lot o clipping going on, which means we have l ost photo inormation that can’t be retrieved later in Photoshop. Tis is something we really need to know, because i I spend an hour shooting an important subject, only to nd out later that all images were severely overexposed, it is a heartbreaker i I can’t repeat the shoot due to circumstances, etc. Tis is not the place to explain how best to use histograms. Tere are dozens o good tutorials on using histograms on the web. Just note: when shopping or a camera, get one that does show you an RGB histogram. Since I don’t use automatic ocus, shutter, or aperture, I would be lost without histograms. Focus
In Focus Stacking, auto-ocusing is not used, since auto ocusing lets the camera decide on one and only one ocus point, and that is that. In ocus stacking, we need many points o ocus, and want to set each one ourselves, since the camera does not have an eye or beauty… yet. So you will be using manual ocus or close-up and ocus stacking.
Program Mode
Te camera does everything or you and decides what is your best shot. Shutter Priority Mode You set the shutter to what you need, and the camera does the rest. For example, in sports events, you need a high (ast) shutter speed to capture the action, while in still lie photography, you can use a much lower shutter speed. Aperture Priority Mode
Here you set the aperture yoursel to gather more or less light, and let the camera do the rest. Manual Mode
In this mode, the photographer sets everything, the shutter speed, the aperture, and the ocus. HIS is the mode I generally use and recommend, although you can use any o the above, with the exception o auto-ocus. What I Carry in the Field
Aside rom my camera, lens, ball-head, and tripod, I don’t bring much. I sometimes carry an extra battery, an extra Memory Card, a couple o light diusers, perhaps one other lens, and a plastic shower cap, the ones with an elastic band. Te shower cap is or, o course, rain showers, at which time I put the cap over the camera and lens to keep it rom getting wet. I store all o this in a very small over-the-shoulder camera bag.
Wind and Focus Stacking I live in Michigan, which is or the most part just fat, since the glaciers moved across it like a snow plow (way back then) and scraped it fat. With nothing to stop it, like mountains and valleys, we have wind, and more oten than not. Wind is a problem or any macro photographer, but a much greater problem i you are trying to stack photos, since even a tiny movement results in halos and other artiacts. artiacts. Te proverbial advice or shooting in wind is either don’t shoot at all or be patient and wait or a l ull. Tis is good advice, except where you need to shoot ve or ten photos, each at a dierent ocal point. What happens is that you get two or three shots o and the wind moves the subject (or parts o the subject) a tiny bit. You don’t even see it because you have your eye to the viewnder, your hand ocusing, and you mind busy coordinating it all. It actually is worse than this. Te wind doesn’t usually just move one blade o grass or whatever. It moves all kinds o things ever so slightly, oten too subtle or you to even catch, but not too subtle or your lens to catch. Te result is that all kinds o stu moves around. Where you gure this out is back home on the computer, while processing the stacks. Photo ater photo has some movement faw or all kinds o little wind-generated artiacts. Some can be xed in Photoshop, but a lot are not worth xing, unless you like being a photo-touchup artist or hours at a time. o make things worse, i you are shooting seasonal fowers, the season does not wait or the wind to die down. Many fowers are in and gone in a ew days. We can schedule time or shooting, but we can’t control the wind, which sometimes is strong enough to keep all o the plants dancing or days at a time. What to do? One thing we can do (although not ocus stacking) is just use a higher shutter speed (one that stops motion) and just shoot traditional one-shot photos with as much depth o eld as we can push the aperture. Tere is always that. Or, i you are shooting something like an entire fower that moves slowly in the wind and can push the shutter speed up so that the whole fower is caught, SOME stacks will work because Photoshop will align the whole fower, shot by shot. Although this approach sometimes works, it seldom works well and is hardly worth the eort. Another thing I have tried is to make l ittle stakes and string little panels o cloth on them in an attempt to stop the wind rom coming rom coming in. I even bought some small collapsible car antennae so the whole thing could be portable, but the wind came in rom above or rom anywhere that was not covered and did it’s thing, so this was not a satisying solution. For really good stacked photos o very small fowers, wind is pretty much a deal breaker. Tere is an inexpensive way out o this, although it is a real PIA to haul around, and that is: a Light ent. Light ents
Light Tents Tey diuse light over whatever is inside the cube AND they stop wind. Tese light tents are all over Ebay, and you can get a 24” or 30” Light ent or around $30. You will have to cut the bottom o one o the fat sides out o the tent or it to be used outdoors, and resign dedicate the tent or eld work, since it is going to get dinged and smudge no matter how careul you are. Simply place the tent over the area on the ground where the fowers are and start shooting. Te tents even come with a Velcro cover cover or the ront (with a s lit or the camera lens), i the wind is trying to get in the ront direction, so you have ve sides that are closed and one side (the bottom) that is open. Tese light tents work g reat or ground work, provided you resign yoursel to carting them around in the woods, in addition to your tripod, camera, lenses, and what-not. But this is a real solution worth trying i you really want those good stacked photos. PHOTO
On the right is an inexpensive Light ent that I have cut the bottom (cut on one o the fat sides) out o. I then place the light tent over the subject, as you can see. Here the sub ject is the Mullein plant. In this photo, I have partially bent the detachable (velcro) ront panel back, so that you can see into the tent. I usually just poke the camera lens through the slit in the ront or pull back the velcro rom the top and shoot downward rom there. Tis is my smaller tent. I also have a 48” tent that kids could play in. I use it to place over whole sections o plants, like in a eld, so that I can stop the wind and concentrate on the fowers or the insects on the fowers, etc. Here you see a Nikon D3s on a Gitzo G2531 tripod, with a Markins Q3 ballhead, and a Nikon MC-30 remote shutter release. Tese and the ollowing shots are kind o sloppy, because I was ghting rain that was only minutes away.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Light Tent with Front Peeled Back So That You Can See
Normal Use of the Light Tent
The Art of Focus Stacking
Light Tents
Modied Light Diffuser
Light Tents in the Field
Light Difusers
Light ents ents old up fat or can be twisted into a small round package, but as you get to the larger sizes, it becomes more dicult to twist them into their smallest orm. Lets ace it, light tents are a hassle to drag around, but i you live in an area where wind is the deault and not the exception, like Michigan, your choice is wither waiting a long time or the chance to make a stacked photo or using a light tent. And I mean a long time.
Diusers and refectors are readily available on Ebay, B&H, Adorama, and other providers o photography accessories, and there are many tutorials on the Internet as to how to use them. Tere are gold, silver, and white refectors, and usually one type o opaque diuser.
As mentioned earlier, taking a traditional one-shot photo is not too much o a problem in wind. Just push up the shutter speed or the aperture, or both. Forget about getting a stacked photo that day. However, i you stack photos then wind will seldom let you get more than a couple o shots o beore it starts to move things around within the rame. Even with a light tent, you have wind. It creeps in through the bottom o the tent, although using a couple o rocks or large sticks to weigh down the sides can lessen it a bit. Still, i the wind is up and the fower (or whatever) is delicate and on an attenuated stem, you are going to nd movement and still be waiting or the wind to die down, although light tents greatly can speed up an outing, allowing you to get many more photos on a windy day. I have 24” and 48” light cubes and usually always have the smaller one in my car. Using light tents can mean that I range in a smaller radius rom my car than I otherwise might, but the results are more than worth it. With care and setup (weighting the sides i the wind is up), I can shoot airly large stacks most o the time. O course, to avoid getting the white sides o the tent in the photo you will have to shoot at some angle, either rom the slit in the ront o the tent or by pulling back the Velcro strips along the top o the ront. I you can blur the white tent as background, it works well or some subjects. Larger light tents give you more reedom in this regard, but are even more awkward to move around. I nd that using light tents is well worth the extra eort and hassle involved. And the larger ( 48”) tent can be used in a eld o fowers or plants, placed over an entire section, allowing you not only to work with plants, but to remove the wind actor on the top o plants (like Queen Anne’s Lace) and concentrate on the many interesting insects that are wandering around on the fower heads. Moving insects AND moving fowers due to wind usually manage to make any stacked photo almost impossible, but remove the wind and the insects may pause long enough to get some depth rom stacking a ew shots.
My problem is with the diusers currently on the market. While they may be useul in ull sun, I nd that or any more delicate sun-shade condition, they block too much light. For example, in a woods situation, where s ome streaming sunlight is coming through the orest canopy (that is too harsh and needs to be toned down), the standard diuser more or less creates more shade, rather than diuses the light. Here is a sol ution: I bought one o the regular diusers. I use the 22” round diuser, because I can collapse it and (with eort) jam it into my coat pocket, which pocket acts like a carrying case. I then went to WalMart and picked out a somewhat-sheer abric that lets a lot more o light through than the original panel. Silk screen material also is perect. I s tretched this new abric over the open diuser and (temporarily) clamped it in place, and then had my daughter (I can’t sew) sew around the rim, xing the new abric. Ten, with the new abric rmly sewed on, I careully cut out the original translucent panel. Te result is a diusing panel that is actually helpul in many situations. It olds up and ts in my coat pocket or the little round bag it came in. I also stu it in a holster-type camera bag, which holds it without any additional sleeve, and pop it out whenever I need it. It screens and sotens the light, so I don’t have glaring patches o sun that blow out the highlights. I prop it up somehow, by any means I can - sticks, holding it, hanging it rom its one loop rom my tripod, etc. Tis diuser acts as a lter to bring down the light to a manageable level.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Crop It and You Get a Normal Photo
Processing Focus Stacks Lightroom and Photoshop
Archiving Photos
I don’t want to get too technical here, but it might be useul or you to get a visual idea o how your s tack o photos are processed, so here is a quick run through.
I take lots o photos and the ir individual size keeps getting larger, what with sensors with more megapixels, like the Nikon D3x, etc. What to do with them? How do I protect them rom… whatever?
I use adobe Lightroom 2.6 to not only catalog all my photos, but also to develop and touch up photos. It really is a great program, a comort to use. But to stack photos, I use Adobe Photoshop CS4. Luckily Adobe has seen to it that these two programs work seamlessly together, so that I can send two or more photos rom Lightroom to Photoshop and back with no trouble. I will show you how I do it, but you, o course, will come up with your own avorite methods. Ater I input my photos to the Lightroom catalog, I go through them to nd the stacks and mark them, so that I don’t mistake a stacked series o photos rom just a standard shot or two. So I go through my new photos and mark the beginning o each stack with a green border, which tells me this is a stack that runs rom the green photo until the next dierent shot. Here is a screen shot rom lightroom. As you can see, near the upper let-hand corner, I have marked a photo with a green border, as the rst in a series o our photos. In this case, the photo is o a dying tree trunk that has been drilled out by one o Michigan’s Pileated Woodpecker, a bird with a body about a oot and a hal long! You can see the stack o photos both in the main grid view and in the loupe view running along the bottom o the screen as well. Tere are some other stacks ollowing this one that are visible. Lightroom and Photoshop are the trademarks of Abobe Software, Inc.
It is good to have as many copies o your photos as you can manage, and stored in dierent places at that. I have my computer set up so that when I copy a new set o photos rom a fashcard, they are written simultaneously to two separate hard drives. Tis is accomplished through RAID ormatting, which always keeps two copies o all les, s eparately. Tereore, i one disk goes down, the other (hopeully) is intact. In addition, I also copy all the les to a third disk, or even more protection. I use Adobe Lightroom to keep track o my photos, as well as to do most developing tasks, like light-balance, tone, sharpening, and so on. I store each day’s photo shoot in a separate older by date, in the ormat “YYYY-MM-DD,” “YYYY-MM-DD,” so that they can appear sequentially. Lightroom has strong keyword capability and attributes you can tag a photo with, such as “Keep,” “Reject,” plus ve colors and ve star ratings. As or keywords, you can enter almost anything and nd it later. I use the color, star, keep, and reject attributes all the time, but tend to all behind on writing out all the keywords. I do tag my “Keepers” in red, so a search or all red-bordered photos let’s me nd the most important ones quickly. I like to browse through my entire collection rom time to time, just because I oten nd photos I have overlooked or one reason or another, that now I have a use or or can touch up to make them use ul. PC or Mac Computer
I have both a Mac and PC, and work with images on both machines, although I do more video work on my MacPro, and still-photo work on the windows-7 PC. Both computers can handle 64-bit applications. As or monitors, I have used two monitors or years, and nd the extra room indispensible. Lately, I have switched to a single 30” monitor with a resolution o 2560x1600 pixels, and nd that the best solution so ar.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Stand Align Focus Marks Stacks Processing Lightroom, Step 2
I have selected these our photos to be stacked. Next, I select the PHOO tab at the top o the screen, scroll down to the EDI IN option, and within that option I select the “Open as Layers in Photoshop” option. Tis will automatically send all our photos to Photoshop, where they will appear as consecutive consecutive layers, ready to be processed as a ocus stack. Instructions continued on next two-page spread. Note: Color Space
Color Space (in a camera or in sotware) sets the practical limits on how much color can be handled. Tere are three main types o color space commonly encountered in cameras and their sotware, sRGB, AdobeRGB, and ProPhotoRGB. Te AdobeRGB color space is wider than the sRGB color space, and the ProPhotoRGB color space is much wider than the AdobeRGB color space. Which color space to use depends on a number o considerations, including how are you going to use your nished photos? Most DSLR Cameras oer you the choice o two color spaces, s RGB (web output) and AdobeRGB (printed color). AdobeRGB has a broader range o color coverage than sRGB, so many olks use that. However, please note: I you are going to shoot J PEG in the camera, then you want to set your color space to sRGB. Te same goes, i you are shooting JPEG and outputting to the web or a computer; use sRGB. Otherwise, you w ill have to convert to sRGB later in the process. HOWEVER, i you shoot camera-RAW images, you don’t have to worry or choose a color space ahead o time or be concerned what your camera color space is set to BECAUSE raw images are independent o color space, and their color space is automatically assigned by whichever raw converter (sotware) you use, that is: whatever color space you set your raw-image converter to. Repeat: raw images are color-space independent. As mentioned above, i you are shooting raw, then it does not matter how you set your color space in the camera BECAUSE your sotware/converter can be set to whatever color space you want. Right now, the broadest color space is ProPhotoRGB. ProPhotoRGB. Adobe Lightroom deaults to the ProPhotoRBG color space and Adobe Photoshop can be set to ProPhotoRGB.
Crop It and You Get a Normal Photo I use ProPhoto RGB and convert to whatever other color space (sRGB, etc.) when I output images rom the above programs. I set both Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop to ProPhotoRGB. Te ProPhotoRGB color space is said to resolve 90% o all possible surace colors in the CIE Lab color space, and 100% o likely real-world surace colors, which is saying a lot. Tereore a combination o the RAW ormat rom the camera and ProPhotoRGB ProPhotoRGB color space in your soware is the best available at the moment, and a good argument or not using JPEG compression. Note: JPEG or Raw Format
Most sophisticated DSLRs oer two output ormats, Raw (native) or .JPG compressed, although almost all proessionals that I am amiliar with shoot their important photos using the Raw ormat. Te reason or Raw is that by using the raw ormat, there is much greater fexibility to adjust your light balance and other important actors later (like years!) back in the studio, while with a compressed bit-map ormat like .JPG, you lose most o that fexibility and may live to regret it. With .JPG, light-balance actors are xed orever in that ormat, and can only be tweaked a little, so you better be a skilled photographer and get the shot right in the rst place. I shoot in raw (native) ormat at the highest bit rate, which is 14-bit Raw in the Nikon cameras that I use. Yes, it uses more space, slows down the computer, etc., but you get a better photo as a result AND can dicker with the photo years rom now, when some new de velopment will allow us to pull more rom the raw ormat than we can now. All the bits and bytes that the camera saw are there.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Stand Align Focus Marks Stacks Processing
Photoshop Launches Automatically
Photoshop will automatically open and the our photos I selected appear, one above the other, as layers. I then select all our, and rom the EDI menu, I select “AUO“AUO-
Crop It and You Get a Normal Photo
Auto-Align Layers dialog box, as you can see on the let.
Auto-Align Dialog Box Once the dialog box is up, you want to check the AUTO radio button, and the GEOMETRIC DISTORTION check box, as shown here, and hit OK. The
The Art of Focus Stacking
the layers with one another. Depending on various considerations, this can take less then a minute to thirty minutes or more. In fact, the program will even say “Not Responding,” but have patience, wait, and it will return.
Stand Align Focus Marks Stacks Processing
Auto-Blend Dialog Box
When the images have been aligned, you will be see that the image may be shaped dierently than beore. Next, go back to the EDI tab at the top o the screen and this
Crop It and You Get a Normal Photo
LAYERS option, and make sure you have checked the SACK LAYERS option and the SEAMELESS ONES AND COLORS option. Press OK. Te program will now blend all the stacks into a single image. Tis takes less time than alignment.
Save The Stacked Photo
When the layers have been blended and the stacked image is displayed, you want to FLAEN HE IMAGE, by chosing that option in the pull-down menuu in the
The Art of Focus Stacking
Ten, rom the FILE menu at the top o the page, select SAVE and the nished stacked photo will be automaticall saved as a .IFF image on your hard drive, and that image will be added to your Lightroom collection. I tag all
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Examples of Focus Stacking
The Art of Focus Stacking
Provisional Results of Focus Stacking I am doing this or mysel, but am h appy to share it with anyone interested. I am talking about my work over the last ew years with ocus s tacking. I believe I have come ar enough, been air enough, and am experienced enough to at least tender a tentative opinion on what ocus stacking can and can’t can’t do, at least as it exists right now. I am working with close-up and macro nature photography, so keep that in mind. For product photography, ocus stacking is a denite plus and works wonderully. Also studio micro-photography, with rails, lights, dead specimens, etc. is alive and well. No big ocus-stacking problems there either. I want to share with you some sample photos. Te subject was pretty random, just a shot o a honeysuckle plant in my back yard taken earlier today, a teen-layer s tack. I ran this stack through some o the major ocus-stacking sotware, including: Zerene Stacker Helicon Focus Photoshop CS5 Below are the results or this teen-layer stack in these three programs, as well as a sample layer rom that stack, or comparison. First, let’s look at the results with brie comments. Tese were shot with the Nikon D3s and the Voigtlander 125mm C/2.5 APO-Lanthar lens at F/5.6. No attempt to touchup these photos has been made, other than a slight bit o sharpening. Tey would look a lot better with some studio work, but it is best to see them as they are, so to speak. Remember, these are very small images here, and on the originals, you can see artiacts, problems, halos, noise, and so on, much more easily. Let’s take a look. I you think you are seeing double or that the fowers have subtle dark halos around them, they do. You are not going crazy. Tat is what we are examining here.
The Art of Focus Stacking
Provisional Results of Focus Stacking Zerene Stacker PMax As I understand it rom speaking with the author o Zerene Stacker, this is somewhat o an original approach, one which does a great job o preserving small sharp detail at the expense o an increase in noise and what almost looks like too much sharpness. You may not be able to see this in these small photos, but the dewdrops on the PMax version as not nearly as ‘gentle’ and natural as those on the DMap. Tere are strong halos around the stamen and stigma, and or that matter around most o the petals. For the most part these are dark and may not seem intrusive at rst g lance. Te halos are be dark or light or more requently a light halo surrounded by a darker one. Overall, Zerene Stacker PMax Mode is in my opinion the best result (in general) rom any stacking sotware, but as you can see it too has real problems, the worst o which is that these halos can not be that e asily retouched to perection, although or many uses retouching will clean a shot like this pretty well.
Zerene Stacker PMax Mode
The Art of Focus Stacking
Provisional Results of Focus Stacking Zerene Stacker DMap Te DMap mode o Zerene Stacker is similar to most other ocus stacking sotware in its approach. It tries to preserve the original color and texture, but is subject to more artiacts than Zerene Stacker PMax mose. In this case, the contrast threshold is set around 55%, and the results are pretty good, although there are halos around the objects and some gratuitous pink on the green-lea background. Notice that the background noise in DMap more is pretty nice and smooth. However there are halos around the petals, and where the petals meet the leaves behind them. And there are all kinds o gratuitous red s pots on the background leaves that should not be there. Retouching DMap-mode has the advantages that the basis color is mostly there and that some o much o the background is smooth does not have a lot o noise. However, the rest o the DMap artiacts require serious retouching.
Zerene Stacker DMap Mode
The Art of Focus Stacking
Provisional Results of Focus Stacking Helicon Focus 5.1] I don’t know what happened in that upper lethand corner where the lea meets the background, and almost all o the stems, stamens, etc. have a very heavy dark halo around them. However, with Helicon Focus in this shot the noise is pretty gentle, but merging the noise and the dark halos will be very tough indeed. And compared to Zerene Focus PMax, Helicon Focus does not handle the ne details as well. Clean up here, in particular in the background, would be tough.
Heliocon Focus Method B 16-1
The Art of Focus Stacking
Provisional Results of Focus Stacking Photoshop CS5 Photoschop CS5 is VERY MUCH better than Photoshop CS4. Aside rom all o the e dge crimps, etc., some o which extend quite ar into the image, Photoshop CS5 may be the best output o all at least noise-wise when it comes to the background, which is smooth. Tere is very little noise and the halos, while present in s ome cases are less than in many o the others. Tat being said, there are some severe artiacts around the edges o the image, so some heavy cropping would have to take place. Also look at the crazy edge/artiacts in the upper-let-hand corner. Plus there are un-sharp areas here and there along the fower stems, which make the overall result relatively unusable. Where the fower petals meet the background leaves are huge wide halos with not detail at all. It would be a mess to try and clean up. Aside rom having less noise and a smooth background, Photoshop CS5 stacked photos are the worst o the lot, IMO, not to mention they can take an extremely long time to process (hours sometimes) compared to the other sot ware.
Photoshop CS5
Align and Merge
The Art of Focus Stacking
Provisional Results of Focus Stacking Non-Stacked Layer Here is just one o the layers, so that you could have some idea o what the background, etc. looks l ike. O course, we can only show you one layer o ocus here, as in an ordinary photograph. However, looking at a traditional photo like this, part o me breathes a sigh o relie or we have no halos, no artiacts, and all o that, but als o we have very limited ocus. Summary You can see that none o these photos and methods is perect or even immediately usable as-is. All have artiacts, some worse than others. And all o the aults are not the same, but, aside rom sharing much in common, the aults dier rom one method o ocus stacking to another is subtle ways. It really is a case o: choose your poison. I you get back ar enough (like a mile!) they all look pretty good, but at very close inspection the magic breaks down and reveals its aults. However, at rst glance and to the average viewer most o these artiacts will not even register. Still, part o the art o ocus stacking is nding ways to minimize the eect o artiacts. At this point, I eel I have now done enough exploration to have more than just a rough idea o how all this works. I don’t believe I am subject to a large degree anymore to “operator error” and that the results I am showing you are pretty indicative o the various sotware available that I have tried.
Single Layer from the Stack
The Art of Focus Stacking
Provisional Results of Focus Stacking A Note about Retouching Both Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus h ave built-in eatures or touching up stacked photos. O the two companies, IMO Zerene Stacker’s touchup is very much easier to use, quite intuitive. And while these companies say that retouching is easy, I nd that only partially true. Yes, it is easy to paint over one edge with another edge, so that you have a sharp edge on some part o the photo that was out o ocus or had some artiact. Where it gets hairy is the backgrounds and the halos, merging the two. You can’t just swap out the backgrounds or paint them in. It does not work that way. Because each layer has a slightly dierent perspective as the ocusing progresses, there is not always a clean area to over write and ll in with . In particular, i you’re trying to get the most depth o eld with each shot, at the point where the edge o each layer eathers out, this eathering oten remains as what will be painted in, as opposed to, say, the actual background. I have tested this many times. While it looks like replacing halos with background should be easy, in act it can be very dicult. Sometimes the halos l ook better than the patchwork quilt o touchup that results. It seems to pay to shoot at a lower aperture, one with the sharpest ocus or a given lens, even i it means considerably more layers than to try and use a higher aperture with more depth o eld. Te more eathery reach o higher apertures means less sharp edges to align and more blurred background in the mix. So I don’t nd it easy at all to correct the dark halos, that is: where the dark hallow around (or example) a stem or stamen, etc. meets the rest o the background color and noise. Tey just don’t match and oten there are no clean areas in the original layers to paint rom, since the overlap between layers gets too blurry. You can use the healing brush and the adjustment brush in Photoshop, but it is dicult-to-impossible really to end up with a smooth background. What you get is, as mentioned, a patchwork kind o cover-up, like a bad make-up job. I am pretty sure (and hoping) that there are those o you out there much more accomplished at all this than I am who can point out methods, tricks, whatever, that will solve this halo/background problem. Ten there is also the new version o Lightroom coming soon (3.0) that is said to have much better noise reduction, which may help some or the deep background. But just saying that “touchup is easy” is not true as I understand it. I beg to be enlightened, because I would like it to be so. Where I Am At Now I eel I have given ocus stacking a good go, not just weeks, or even months, but or the last two years and more, at least. On the one hand I continue to be impressed with the
The Art of Focus Stacking Perhaps this is also true in much o our lie, like with cosmetics, makeup, and everything that serves appearances over reality. Many even preer ‘good’ appearances” and a pleasant smile to what really is the case. I don’t know. know. I like things as they are. I am not giving up, and am going to continue to experiment, but please note that I am also going to use everything I have learned here to approach traditional oneocus-point photography again, and try to push my le nses and the aperture just shy o diraction, like so many o us do. I must coness that lately I am glad to see a one-layer photo with no artiacts or a change! I would like eedback rom those interested in this very ascinating technique. Note: I we used 1000 other photos, we would have 1000 other results, but they would ollow the general results outlined above. A Personal Note I see the photography uture or mysel to include traditional photos with a touch o ocus stacking to bring out key areas. And no doubt, I will always love a good stack. Tese last ew years I have been exploring the limits o ocus stacking to see how ar the envelope can be pushed. I have a pretty good idea at this point. I learned early on that I don’t want to stack in a studio, with a rail, and 150 layers. I could do it, but I like to be outside. Maybe in winter, possibly. And I don’t don’t think in terms o nished photos. I have never even printed out a single nished stacked photo on a color printer, although I have big inkjet printers available to me. I don’t, t, in general, want photos on my walls. My interest in all o this is else where, in what I reer to as a spiritual component. It is hard to describe, but my interest has to do with more than just the glass. I am ascinated by what I call the “seeing,” a certain clarity o mind that results rom looking through ne lenses at small worlds in nature, and this is enhanced by the patience and procedures necessary to produce good stacks. I do this to rest my mind, not primarily or the photos that result. Finished photos mean little to me. Everything or me is provisional, a workshop and not a gallery. Michael Erlewine
The Tracks of the Dust Bunnies
Te racks o the Wild Dust Bunny Focus stackers need to keep in mind that dust bunnies on your sensor are not a one-click removal job. Depending on how many layers are in your stack, those bunnies add up to a curving line through your stacked photo. And i you have not cleaned your sensor or awhile, the background o the stacked photo starts to look like star trails. In the shot o the fower shown here, a couple o small bugs were having a road race while the stack was shot and the resulting photo looks more like an inestation than the reality, which was one or two bugs out or a stroll.
The Art of Focus Stacking
StanInspirational d Align MarksFactor The The Key to Taking Good Photos
Tis next section is not about ocus stacking, but some thoughts I have had about my own photography journey. I include it on the chance that it might be useul. It has to do with what we chose to photograph and when. Te poet Gerard Manley Hopkins came up with a concept that stuck me as true. He even made up his own word to describe it, “inscape.” Inscape was to Hopkins an insight into the eternal or beautiul, literally the way or sign o the beautiul. Let me explain. I look orward to my trips out into the elds and woods. Tey oer me a chance to get my head together, to relax rom the day-to-day grind o running a business, and g enerally to relax a bit. Tis is not to say that just going outside and walking in nature means that I am instantly relaxed. Tat usually takes time.
Crop It and You Get a Normal Photo Tese moments o inscape are dierent on dierent days, and dierent or dierent people. Tey represent the clues or signs that catch our attention and show us the way into the beauty o the natural world, actually the beauty o our own mind. Another way o saying this might be: what is beauty actually? What happens when we see something beautiul? Beauty is not simply somewhere out there in nature waiting to be ound, but always h ere within us, locked within us, we who are seeing this nature, we who can see the beautiul. Beauty breaks down the rush o the everyday world and opens our heart a wee bit, making us vulnerable again, open to experience and input.
Trough natural beauty we go inside and experience the inner beauty o things, which is none other than our own inner beauty. Tat is what beauty is or, to be touched on, seen, so that we nd once again the beauty within our own It is the same with taking photos. In the rst ten minutes o hearts that we may have lost through the distractions o a shoot I oten don’t see all that much to photograph. Tis our daily lie. We look outside in nature to see in here, to too takes time, time or me to slow down, open up, and see into our own heart once again. ‘see’, to let the natural beauty all around me in. It could be that I am still lled with all the workaday-world thoughts, We can be sensitive to beauty in our photography. I would hate to tell you how many photographs I have o this or the things I have to do, problems, and what-have-you. It that butterfy or critter that are perectly good phototakes time or my mind to relax and let go o its constant chatter. Tis endless worry and thinking aects my photog- graphs, but are empty o magic or meaning. Tey are well lit, well composed, and have everything that makes a good raphy. photograph except that ‘magic’ that keys or excites me. And here is where the word ‘inscape’ comes in. As I get out Instead, they are ‘pictures’ o a butterfy, but they have not there and wander through the elds or wherever, I gradually captured any essence o anything. Tey might as we ll be in start to slow down and begin to see things that are beautia eld guide – snapshots in time with no meaning. ul, scenes that I might actually want to photograph. Slowly Te reason or this, so I tell mysel, is because they just my view o the natural world around me s tarts to open up again, and I begin to view things dierently. I begin to ‘see’. happened to be there, photographic opportunities. I saw them and I took a photograph, but at the time they did It takes time, and usually does not happen all at once. Tis not instill or strike any particular beauty beauty in me. Tis, to little pattern o leaves over here or the way the light comes me, is “gotcha” photography, taking a photo because I though the orest canopy, grabs me just a little bit, and the chatter o my mind pauses and slows. As I walk along, some can, not because I saw beauty in it or was moved to do so. Tere was no inscape moment, no moment o vision – little thing or scene appears beautiul to me; I am touched by it, however lightly at rst. I gradually get distracted rom snapshots only. my daily distractions and begin to center. I nd that it is really worth paying attention to what strikes me as beautiul or meaningul and photographing Tese little moments are ‘inscapes’, ways out o my mundane world and into the beauty o nature or, more accurate- that, rather than just photographing the Grand Canyon because it is there or I am there. A lasting photograph, in ly, back into into the state o my own mind or being. As I take my opinion, requires more o me than that, by denition. my time, I am able to see the beauty in things once again, It has to mean something to me and, or that to happen, and what I am seeing suddenly seems worth photographI need to actually be moved or inspired. Photographs that ing. Like most o us, I photograph what catches my interhave special meaning or me usually have some orm o est, what I nd beautiul or worthy in the world around inscape into a special moment that inspires me to capture me. the scene in a photo. Tese inscapes are signals that catch my attention, and they We can wander or miles looking or something to phofag me down on my busy way or ward to nowhere-intograph, chasing down this or that butterfy or animal… particular. Tese moments and signs are how I stop going searching. Or, we can slow down and let nature hersel nowhere, and manage to almost miraculously arrive someshow us the signs, the inscapes through which we can relax where once again, perhaps only at my own pe ace o mind. and begin to ‘see’ photographically once again. We can lisTis is one o the unctions o the beautiul, to catch us in the turmoil o lie, fag us down, and induce us to pull over ten to our own intuition. Tis process o inscape, o insight
that are real keepers, at least in my mind. I we don’t touch our own inner sel in our work, we touch no one at all, but when we are touched by a moment, I nd that others also eel this. ouch one, touch all. - Michael Erlewine [email protected]
The Art of Focus Stacking
