#PHOTOSTACK MACRO HOW TO#
#PHOTOSTACK MACRO MANUAL#

The priority needs to be on the aperture because we’re working with the depth of field, and trying to get as much in focus as possible.Īs you know, a small aperture means a deeper depth of field, and a wide aperture results in a shallow depth of field. Also, if you’re using natural light try to do them as quickly as possible so the exposure doesn’t change in between shots.

#PHOTOSTACK MACRO MANUAL#

The ISO, shutter speed and aperture need to be set in manual mode to keep the exposure constant throughout the photoshoot. Since we’re on the subject, everything else has to be done manually as well. This means of course, that you have to use manual focus. This way you can zoom in and adjust the focus. If it’s possible, especially for macro photography, always use the live view. All your images are going to overlap and then blend, so the framing needs to be exactly the same.Īlso, if you’re working with a macro lens, the difference in focus is so small that you need to be extremely precise, which can’t be done hand-held.

#PHOTOSTACK MACRO HOW TO#

Let’s have a closer look at how to produced a stacked focus image.įirst of all, you’re going to need to shoot with a tripod. The example above shows my shoe which was shot by stacking focus and using auto blend in Photoshop. So, let’s start from the beginning and learn how to take the pictures you’re going to need for focus stacking.

This is because you need a certain number of photographs covering every point of focus as material to work with.įocus stacking is used in everything from landscape photography through to product photography – you may have noticed that photos of jewelry are always in tack sharp focus from front to back, for example. However, to get your series of focus stacked images, you need to plan on using the technique from the start of the photo shoot. This is focus stacking.Īs you can see, this is done in post-processing. Then, you ‘stack’ all these pictures and blend them together to get one photograph where everything is in focus. If you want to have your entire scene in focus but the depth of field is not enough, you can photograph it multiple times, placing the focus on different points. Including a foreground in photography (which is in focus as much as the background), is a great way to tell two stories at once, or simply show everything in a scene in full clarity to the viewer. How wide or narrow this is will depend on a combination of three things: the aperture, the distance between the foreground and the background, and the focal distance of your lens (which also determines how close you are to your subject). How much area of your picture is in focus is called the depth of field. Focus Stacking allows objects in the f oreground, middle-ground and background to remain in focus.

Photostack macro