Focus Stacking Technique

Focus stacking could change your life. Especially if you are trying to shoot a subject that just won't all get everything in the frame into sharp focus.

Why is this? All lenses have a focussing limit - either because their design prevents it from attaining truly deep focus characteristics (like a telephoto lens) or because, once stopped down to the smallest aperture (to get the benefit of depth of field) the image loses some clarity.

The answer to this sharpness dilemma is to make several shots of the same subject (obviously using a tripod) then assembling a 'master' image, deleting the out of focus bits from the three shots while retaining only the sharpest bits. The result? An image that looks like it was shot at f128! Another obvious advantage is that you can shoot the three sections using the lens' sweet spot - which is likely to be f11 - so you capture the frames at the sharpest possible aperture setting and only use the the 'good' bits from each frame. Easy to post process? With Elements, it's a no-brainer. With CS it's just a little more fiddly but I think you'll agree, the results are amazing...                                                                                                                                                                 

PSE Focus Stacking from Robin Nichols on Vimeo.

CS Focus Stacking from Robin Nichols on Vimeo.