Thank you for teaching! Also, you've been putting a lot of effort in editing. It shows! I enjoyed the little icons and sounds here and there. Helped to really point out something.
Hey mark I took a AEB photo of the moon recently and because of the different shape of the moon under different exposures I couldnt auto align it to hdr blend it. So annoying! Plus it was hard to figure out a way to manually align them.
From my own experience, I've learned to compose with enough room around the edges to allow for cropping (because of focus breathing). Another thing I do is duplicate my layers, then just auto-blend the duplicates. That way if there are any inaccurate blends, which often happens with foliage, I can mask in the correct in-focus areas manually from the original layers.
Thanks again Mark! Would it be a mistake to use the camera's focus bracketing instead of choosing focus points manually? Also, no one seems to know: on my Panasonic camera, the focus bracketing setting asks how many "steps" per image (between 1 and 10 I think), what is this number measured in? I know that a higher number varies the focus more per image, but what is this number measured in? Meters, feet, stops, percent, etc?
My first attempt at focus stacking was yesterday. I now know that I made a lot of mistakes. Lol. You do a very good job of explaining your steps and thought processes and I appreciate that you follow up with a visual aid.
Thanks for this one Mark. I hadn't thought to use manual mode when focus stacking. I would have expected that to be a mistake. This isn't like panoramas where an automatic setting would result in changing exposures even when the ambient light isn't changing. Here an auto setting should only change the exposure to try to compensate for a change in ambient lighting (e.g., sun goes behind a cloud for on of the exposures). On manual, if there is a change in ambient light, won't the stacked picture look weird? Maybe stacking is just a bad option no matter what if ambient lighting is fluctuating quickly, or one needs to time exposure so that they are all made when ambient light is similiar? Also, I have a big issue with focus breathing when shooting macro photos (Canon L series macro lens). Auto align doesn't cure the issue. I purchased a rail so that I could shift focus by moving the camera 1 mm at a time, rather than refocusing. That avoids focus breathing but the change in perspective from moving even one mm at a time between each photo in a series of shots of a macro subject is still so big as to screw up alignment of the photos when stacking. Any suggestions?
Your exaggeration on the shutter button is absolutely hysterical! It reminds me of some awful "as seen on TV" commercial where it shifts to black and white and shows people failing miserably to open a cabinet or something. Thanks for the video as always.
What do you do, when Lightroom makes your 3 stacked photos, noisy/unsharp/rainy? I've experienced when you give LRC more than 3 photos to HDR stack, it's just a mess. Mostly do stacking for HDR. But this happens for focus stacked also.
Excellent video Mark. I am very grateful I found your channel. Your videos are of an exceptional quality, very easy to follow and very practical. I have learned a tremendous amount from watching your videos, even on topics I thought I was well versed in. Thank you :)
Thanks for posting these videos they have been very helpful. One thing I struggle with is "Metering Mode" and "Focusing Mode". I'm a Canon user and for Metering Mode I have 4 choices, Evaluative Metering, Partial Metering, Spot Metering and Center Weighted Metering. For Focusing Mode I have the following choices; 1 AF Point, Zone AF, Large Zone AF and 45 point AF. With regards to shooting several frames for later Stacking what setting should I be using. Thanks in Advance, C.
Do you shoot with a mirrorless camera to avoid the shake on your images or do you have a single flex reflex camera? Great content, I have learned something new for me. Thanks for the info.
very useful. just imagine one person somewhere a remote location of INDIA did tried to do focus stacking and left out with FOCUS GAP today and frustration culminated in....thanks for solution.
Great presentation and coverage, Mark. Well done. You may have already covered my following suggestions. You could add to your advice about camera stability to use the inbuilt camera timer of 2 or 10 seconds or a cable release for shutter activation. Although an extra burden, I also use a sand bag filled with pebbles ( no sand anywhere! ) that I suspend from the tripod. The 8kg bag makes the tripod really rock solid against wind and accidental bumping movement. If the location has pebbles they could be used in situ instead of carrying the 8kg bag. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. All the best.
One question which was not covered in your video, which by the way was very informative. I do plan to try this next time out. What is you opinion on manual focus vs auto focus points? As said, next time out I will try using manual focus and auto focus on same scene to see if one is better / easier than the other, however would just like your opinion.
Thanks Mark. This was definitely helpful and, as always, well-explained. My question is, how do you decide what Fstop to use when focus stacking? What factor(s) play into your decision? Thanks again.
Thanks for the Focus Sacking lesson. I find when I do that, I'm afraid that I'll miss something, so I take too many shots and end up with 5-6 images when most times 1 or 2 would work. The other thing is I'm always taking close up shots of mountains, and don't include the foreground items enough. I'm learning to back out on the cropping. Thanks.
Given the potential for moving the camera, as well as swift changes in lighting wouldn't it be better to use the in-camera mode for focus stacking instead of doing this manually? For example, focus shift shooting in Nikon cameras. I'm guessing that other brands have similar modes. Thanks - Dave
The Olympus OM-D system has a built in Focus Stacking and a Focus Bracketing function. Sounds like that system would work better to resolve many of these issues. The only issue I have found with those is what focus differential to select.
A hyperfocal Calculator can also help decide if you need to focus stack. Hopefully your lens doesn't suffer from too much focus breathing. Wind can also move foliage around in between shots...
Great video Mark, I learned all of this hard way. Now I stick to focus stacking primarily for panorama, and anything else that requires a close subject also in focus (something interesting and adds to the image). I always shoot manual mode and hence, the other one was never a problem. The challenge is when it's windy and you need to stack. I have not figured that one yet - except returning to the location in a better weather condition.
There is an app for that, even if you camera doesn't support focus stacking. Helicon Focus and Helicon Remote. Haven't used it for years. Best I remember, with Remote you take the near and far photos and it takes those in between. Focus does the stacking, though there are other options for that, too. It's marketed for macro photography as it takes the stack without the photographer having to touch and accidentally move things. Yeah, it involves being tethered. Thanks for your great videos.
Nice video. Have you ever tried in camera focus shift for a landscape. I haven't yet for landscapes, but do use it for product photos (I demonstrate it on my latest vid). I was wondering if it would speed up taking a stack, particularly when the light is changing fast, as in your sunset example, enabling you to catch the images with minimal light change?
Hey mate thanks for video! Bit confused tho. You say not to change shutter speed when stacking. Just curious in the first waterfall shot (and this is a problem I have been facing lately) how to blur out the water but also create sharp foliage amd correct exposure… cheers
frequently use as 50mm equiv for pano and focus stack to partly compress the pic. That creates a problem for me, combined focus stack/pano. I have to move the camera to get the whole pic. The problem I run inback in the computer is the focus points are different. So im finding shooting is important and not sure the best way to do it. Thinking out loud here, shoot one foreground pic with locked focus, rotate camera to side, shoot pic then change focus, to mid,shoot. rotate camera shoot, etc until the whole pic is shot. and let the camera also do the bracketing so I minimize my interaction with camera? how close is my thinking? And you always seem to work near to far and not hop around??
nice - but do you use and foremost do you even see the result e.g. on instagram ? (so i guess for social media ... would it be worth the effort ? - for a wallpaper ofc but social media ? ) thank you :) :)
In one of your videos on photo stacking involving moving water, you fixed the water around the rock as water was moving. Can you direct me to the video where you did the editing of the stack. I think it is the stack you used in this video of the water fall.
I haven’t been able to try it because I always get an error when I try to auto align “layers do not overlap enough to detect alignment “… is that do to all of these mistakes you mentioned? I always do handheld not using tripod
Focus breathing is a characteristic of most lenses, whereby the actual focal length of the lens changes with the focal distance. Focus breathing can be a real problem in macro photography. Some lenses are much worse than others; I have a 105mm macro lens that has terrible focus breathing: Try blending a 103mm image with a 107mm image!
@@MarkDenneyPhoto is there a big difference in image quality between the Sony and the Fuji? I just jumped into the Fuji universe - happy so far - but I've never tried a full frame camera ...
These tips answer some of the struggle I have with focus stack. One question remain open to me. How do I focus stack when I also have to braket exposure? For example sunrise with cloud in Background and rock formation in fore ground. Do I expose background and fore ground differently or blend exposure of two focus stack exposure? Thank again for the video and have a good day.
When I'm in that situation I create an exposure bracket for each section of my scene that I'm focus stacking. You're left with a ton of images, but the result will usually work very well.
Granted, on the first one, you could use two different exposure times to brighten shadows and make more dramatic skies like in a mountain scenery when the sky and ground are at different exposures naturally to manually enhance dynamic range.
I haven't played with focus stacking lately but I had to smile when you started talking about "focus stacking EVERYTHING" because I did that for a bit, but I find I often lean on using exposure stacking a lot. It definitely helps for a scene with HUGE dynamic range, but I've found it can be helpful for lower light and sometimes for product photography
I also watched your previous video on Focus staking And like any other video this video is must be filled with tones of amazing informations thanks you.......
Thanks Mark. it's so easy to mess up focus stacking, especially when you have a small window of 'special light' to work within. Focus stack panic sets in (a bad case of acute FSP). The cure is to get the composition figured out ahead of time, make sure you know the focus spots and when the light hits, turn your phone off and get down to business. Easier said than done!
Time to get an im camera setti g for this, like bracketing. Especially with mirrorless and communication with the lens, the camera can determine the distances involved in the frame.
Great video. Thanks. There is a big dof difference between FF and APS-C. With the second you rarely need focus stacking while it is much more common with FF. Have you tried the focus stacking bracketing mode of your Fuji camera? If so. How did that work for you?
Hi Mark As usual this is a great video that you created on focus stacking. I’m going to go ahead and try out some of your techniques. Thank you. Pat Hogarty from El Dorado hills California.
Great video! I tried it a lot, but didn't find a way to avoid the problem of moving flowers, when they are the foreground. In the background images they are blurry, hence bigger than their sharp version in the foreground picture; and most of the time they are in a different position. How do you stack that kind of picture?
@@MarkDenneyPhoto yes, they are sharp in the foreground shot, but considering the inevitable blurriness they present in the background shot, and the wind moving them, my stack ends up with a mixed sharp-blurred foreground
Stacking images with moving foliage is extremely difficult. The slightest breeze will screw up automated stacking and even stacking manually can be brutal. Try it on an extremely still day; else, maybe just stack two photos with a fast exposure and the smallest aperture the light will let you use, and hope that's enough.
Hi Mark, do you find there's any benefit/downsides to focusing by just touching the touchpad? I'm a chronic touchpad user when I've got the camera on the tripod, and never use the viewfinder or camera buttons to focus. Do you find the pressing the touchpad is a sufficient way to focus?
Good one Mark; you make it sound so easy ... I have one question; can you take a quick snapshot of your T-shirt closet? I've never seen the same one twice!
Great job, Mark...always appreciate your insights and teaching style! I actually watched this video when it first came out and applied it, with great success, while shooting with a D7500. I have now changed ("upgraded", "downgraded", "lateral movement", depending on one's point of view) to a Nikon Z5. That has the nifty "focus shift shooting" feature in the menu. I'm curious as to your take and experience with this feature. While manually doing things the "old fashioned" way is a more ingrained process at this point, and makes one less dependent on technology, what, in your expertise, are the plusses and minuses of letting the camera do it for you instead? Maybe you can address this in a future video with some suggestions for settings? There are numerous options within the sub menu, like number of shots, focus shot width (narrow to wide), interval to next shot and whether you should save those stacked shots in the main folder (along with any other non-stacked shots) or in a separately named folder in the card file system. Lastly, I was (initially) led to believe that the camera created a finished photo, "in camera", from all the combined shots. However, it appears that these stacked photos STILL need to be processed in PS/LR or one's photo editor of choice, correct?
Excellent video, Mark! As a landscape and product photographer, I've used "manual" focus stacking with great success with my small product photography. However, using the Nikon Z7's in-camera "Focus Shift Shooting" mode, (with camera on a solid tripod, using AF, of course, manual exposure and in AF-S mode, and the ultra-sharp Nikkor S 50 f/1.8 at f/8), when I set the first exposure's focus point on the nearest point of the subject (or bottom, if a vertical subject like a beer bottle) and set it for 25 or 35 shots, with a Focus Step Width of 5, Interval until next shot of 3, First frame exposure lock ON, Peaking Stack image OFF, Silent Photography ON (unless using flash), and Start. I find that the focus point did not travel "up" or through the subject as expected, thus invariably resulting in areas of unsharpness! Not sure what I'm missing here, but I would think that in a controlled studio environment, this function should work as well as my manual focus stacking does! Thanks, and be safe!
You never use longer lenses? The need for focus-stacking increases with the increase of focal length of your lens. Unless you intentionally want a blurry section of your image, that is.
THAT SHIRT !?!?! Where did you get that shirt ????? Pretty please, I have been wishing for one of those cars my whole life. Now let me at least have it on a tshirt...loved the video btw
Very nice video, I've noticed Photoshop also struggles with intricate items as well. Take your desert landscapes for example, Yucca plants and Joshua Trees have dense sword-shaped leaves. Photoshop simply fails to properly mask between the leaves, zoom in and nothing but blur, lot of post work to make them blend properly.
Awesome ! Thanks Mark ! slowly getting ready for my Canadian Rockies trip this summer with the kids, will definitely use your tips & tricks for focus staking.
Another good one! I think you should have covered aperture settings when you focus stack. Should you use the lenses "sweet spot" typically somewhere around f/4 - f/8 giving the sharpest images or should you stop down to the "famous" landscape aperture of f/11 giving more depth of field? I'm really interested in your preferences. Thanks.
About the last (non-bonus) one, one feature that I really like about the Fuji X-T3 is the automatic focus bracket mode. You can set how many images to take, how large of a step there is between images, and even how long between each image is taken. You still have to process that many individual images, but when you're out there it really helps with speed and not having to potentially move your camera out of place ever so slightly.
Great video, super useful, superb content as always. I struggle a lot with focus stacking trees, especially when it's windy. The moving leafs cause a lot of trouble when blending the images, there is a lot of ghosting and the inbuilt Photoshop anti-ghosting can often not handle it properly. Do you have any tips for this issue?
Hi Mark, Great video as always! As you know, many cameras now have automatic focus stacking features where you set your camera settings, select the nearest focus point, then select the number of shots to focus stack and the camera will select various focus points. Both intentionally and accidentally, I have used aperture priority on some of my focus stacks. When blending them automatically in Photoshop using the checkbox option "Seamless colors and tones," I have had good experience with the final result. Sometimes on high dynamic range images (e.g., a backlit sky at sunset), I have taken a second underexposed image of the infinity focused image to blend together in PS later. Have you had success with focus stacking images not shot on manual?
Hi Mark. Once again you give us good information and what to avoid. The teacher comes through once again. I love focus stacking. Thanks to you I'll be getting better. Bill.
Very useful Mark, Many Thanks. I spotted mistakes I make sometimes as though I always shoot panos in manual unless it's in blue hour I have mostly shot Focus Stacked images in Aperture priority. guess if you have one of the fancy new mirrorless cameras that automatically do focus stacking it's simples!!
Hey Mark, very good and informative video, truthfully speaking I was watching your work space for first 5 min., how intricately and beautifully you have arranged things back there, multiple source of lights and its shadows on things, everything is placed perfectly and its coming together to add more beauty to the place. I had to rewind the video multiple time to catch up with you 😀 Love the experience you have shared, it takes a lot to bring it together and sum it up in 15 min, Hats off...
