As a result, moving subjects can be repeated, broken, or the whole process may not be possible. Much like stitched panoramas, the stacked images are brief snaps in time taken over a much longer time than even a single stopped down exposure.
It’s simply not the end-all be-all solution to depth of field problems. Like everything in photography, focus stacking is a tool that can help in some situations and may not work at all in others. Shooting at f/16 yields enough depth of field to get the flower completely in focus, but the background becomes extremely busy and distracting.Ĭonversely, shooting at f/2.8 the background has been cleaned up, but there isn’t enough depth of field to get the whole flower in focus.Ĭombining multiple images shot at f/2.8 with slightly shifted focus points, however, has the effect of increasing the depth of field on the subject while simultaneously keeping the bokeh quality of a fast aperture shot. The objective, as far as I’m concerned, is to get a completely in focus flower on as clean of a background as possible. I think the photos below demonstrate this quite nicely. While most people think of depth of field as how much will be in focus, you can also think of it as controlling how fast something will become out of focus as the distance between it and the point of focus increases, and simultaneously controlling how out of focus something will be. This is the case the partially replaces the need for a tilt shift lens, but lets you keep smooth out of focus backgrounds where you want them. The real interesting case, for me, is the second one. Typically, this is combined with macro photography, where depth of field, even at tiny apertures, is incredibly shallow. The you’re stopped down to f/22 but you still don’t have enough depth of field for the shot. The first case is the typical case presented for using focus stacking. More depth of field without giving up optimal sharpness.More control over bokeh than you can get by stopping down.More depth of field than you can get even when stopped down as far as the lens will go.Nevertheless, that’s not what this is about… Why Choose focus stacking over stopping down? I’ve played with the product Helicon Focus, and while I didn’t ultimately find it worth the money based on my needs, it does have some nifty features. That’s not to say that I didn’t know about focus stacking. Photoshop since CS4 has had focus stacking built in? The 30s Tutorial for Lightroom and Photoshop Users.Why Choose focus stacking over stopping down?.
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