Focus Stacking in Landscape Photography | GET YOUR PHOTOS SHARP from Front to Back
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- Today I show you a skill that I learned early in my photography career, and it is one you need to learn as well to get much better photographs where everything is in focus from front to back ...
I also make a bit of a mistake as well, so hopefully you can learn from that and not make it when you are out shooting.
I blame the early start to the morning!! 😆😆
Here' the link to my website article: www.mikesmithphotography.com/...
I suppose you could called this a landscape photography vlog ... but I prefer on location landscape photography!
Today's location is Cregennan Lakes in mid Wales. This is a fantastic location to hike and photograph. The small mountain I hiked to the top of is a nice little leg burner but not too big ...
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(It's expensive but well worth it!)
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Sony A7iv: geni.us/SonyA7iv-FF
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Sony RX10iv: geni.us/Sony-RX10iv
Nisi 15mm f4: geni.us/Nisi-15mm
Tamron 17-28mm: geni.us/tamron-17-28mm-fe
Tamron 28-200mm: geni.us/tamron-28-200mm-fe
Camera Clip: geni.us/PDCameraClip
Lowepro 450Aw ii: geni.us/LoweproProtactic450aw
Sirui Tripod: geni.us/sirui-tripod-legs
Sirui Tripod ballhead: geni.us/sirui-tripod-ballhead
iFootage tripod: geni.us/ifootage-TC7
Small travel tripod: geni.us/little-tripod
Gloves: geni.us/MyGloves
Jacket: geni.us/MyJacket
Filming camera gear:
iFootage TC7: geni.us/ifootage-TC7
Manfrotto video head: geni.us/Manfrotto-video-head
Sony A7C: geni.us/Sony-A7C-FF
Hollyland Lark 150: geni.us/Lark150wirelessMic (Not the best but it does the job for now)
Rode Video Micro: geni.us/Rode-video-micro
GoPro Hero Black: geni.us/GoProHero10POVCam
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DJI Mini 2: geni.us/DJIMINI-2
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Nick Page / @nickpage
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Michael The Maven / @mmaven
Thomas Heaton / @thomasheatonphoto
Curtis Judd / @curtisjudd
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Thanks
Mike
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Timecode:
0:00 - Intro to this photography skill you need
1:00 - When you might not need it ...
1:36 - When you do need it ...
1:54 - Bonus Tip 1
4:22 - Getting close to the foreground
6:24 - Bonus Tip 2
6:59 - What I use to edit my photos
8:06 - The automated way to focus stack
14:17 - The manual way to focus stack
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info@mikesmithphotography.com
www.mikesmithphotography.com
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#mikesmithphotography #onlocationphotography #photography #landscapephotography
You've blown my mind! Watched a 1 hour video the other day about focus stacking in Adobe. I finished it with a headache! You've just explained everything I need to know in a way I understand in less than 20 minutes. It's great that you're showing your mistakes and how to combat them.
That's great to hear Simon!! It amazes me that there are some channels on-line that go on-and-on for hours when certain subjects like this can be explained in 10-20 minutes. Be sure to check out my channel as I have so many more videos like this.
Thanks for watching 😁👍
Thank you so much for this video! You're making photography so much easier for this amateur photographer lol.
That's great to hear Ivan!! It gets me really motivated to make more when I hear my videos are helping!!
Thanks for watching 😁👍
oh man.. Your videos are binge worthy and super informative !
Haha! That's what I like to hear!!
Thanks so much for watching Prasad. 👍👍
Thanks again Mike. Great information! This will really help with my macros. Take care.
No worries, thanks for watching 😁👍
Thank you for your video. I especially liked two things about it. Firstly, you indicated a time to go to for viewers who didn't have to go through the initial explanation. Secondly, your explanation was really coherent in its step by step rendition with precise screen views to make a beginner like me to understand it. Thank you.
That's great to hear you liked my teaching style.
I plan them out as much as possible to try and make them as watchable as possible. 👍
Thanks for watching and commenting, much appreciated. 😁
Hi Mike, I just wanted to thank you for this technique tutorial as well as all your dedicated work that you are willing to show us and teach us with your sophisticated presentation skills.
And a big thank you for taking us with you to all of these enchanting places.
Best regards from Serbia.
Thanks so much for your kind words! I have a lot of fun writing, filming and editing these videos so it is great to hear they are helping!
I could do a lot of these videos from my office, but then I'd be missing out on all of these places, so I just have to get out and shoot in as many different places as possible!! 😃
And you never know, hopefully I might make it to Serbia sometime in the future as you have some amazing landscapes over there ... the Uvac Canyon looks unreal!!!
As always thanks for watching 😁👍
Nice video🙂, i like the lake photo with the boat house and the mountain! And i want to send a photo i took of a cool ship that i saw in Oslo today! 👀 😁
Thanks very much!! ... and no worries, send it through!! 🙂👍
Excellent tutorial Mike. So easy to follow a d undertand every step of the way. Very enjoyable.
That's awesome to hear David!
Thanks for watching 😁👍
Good tutorial and tips Mike. Just subscribed.
Great to hear you liked it Lyn! Thanks for watching 😁👍
brilliant video! Thanks!!
No worries, thanks for watching! 🙂👍
Good to see you back at the desk giving a tutorial. I love the 'on location' videos but did enjoy the balance of today's video too. Bring back the 2 minute tutorials 😉. I have neither PS or Lr, favouring Capture One and Affinity Photo for my Fuji photos, but it was still good to see the basics of the process in action. A lot more creativity seems to have gone into today's video edit, too. You're getting quite good at these!! 😂 Who was minding the camera when you were on top of the mountain?? 😉. Great work 👌🏼🎥
Thanks very much dude ... got a few more desktop tutorials coming soon ...
The 2 minute tutorials were taking up so much time, so had to bin them a year or so ago ... once the business grows enough for me to take on an editor, I may well bring them back ... 🤔
I might have used a little bit of creative editing to get me on top of the mountain for that shot; the camera was far too close to the road to leave on its own for that long!! It's amazing what after effects can do these days!! 🙂👍
I did get a little carried away with the edit this week!! 😆😆 Was a lot of fun though putting it together though ...
... Out of interest, how are capture one and affinity Photo for focus stacking?
@mikesphotography my photography is very much a hobby, and for that, I find Capture One and Affinity to be more than enough. I've barely scratched the surface of their full potential! I bought Affinity solely to do pano stitching after watching one of your earlier videos. And for that, it has been perfect. I will have a crack at focus stacking and get back to you. Oooo, interesting, you may require an editor - let me brush up my skills. I'll be waiting by the phone! 🤣😉 Right, football is about to start. I'm not a football lover, but I am Welsh 🙌🏼🏴😇
@@findermanimages Haha! Enjoy the game dude!!
It's amazing to see the depth of pretty much all of the photo editing programs ... so much to learn and understand. I'm the same with photoshop. I use it to get rid of things, to focus stack and do the odd pano stitch when lightroom struggles, but that's about it ... 👍
Nice video. I don't use it very often but it is a good technique to master when you need it. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much Reno!! I know what you mean ... unless you specifically go for shots where you have the foreground/midground/background elements, it isn't needed that often, but like you said, a good skill to have!
Thanks for watching 😁👍
You can use the [ and ] keys to expand and contract your brush size, on Windows at least.
Yes indeed. Also on Mac.
Thanks for the tip. 😁👍
Hey. Thanks for the video. I have a question tho: Can you recommend a good set of winter gloves suitable for shooting? Coming from a tropical island is not helping during the colder months in Europe hehehe.
Brilliant Mike again, im learning so much from you mate your vids are awesome . I bought the Canon eos 250 D by the way for use with my telescope and i am watching ASTRO BACKYARD vids which like you said are great, also i went mad and bought a Nikon D3200 again from ebay, should have them both by the weekend, i thought might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb as they say ha. Keep safe mate. Kev.
Haha! Photography can be addictive like that!! 😆
Thanks very much for your kind words Kev, great to hear that you are learning from my videos and they are helping!!
Thanks for watching 😁👍
Great tutorial, Mike. Beautiful scenery as always. I am always happy when I remember to focus stack, but unfortunately, I rarely remember to do so. I did take a bunch of photos at my daughter's wedding this past weekend. Now the long process of culling images to find the five or six from the thousand or so I took that she will love. There were photographers there, so pressure is off. I hope you and yours are well, my friend. On another note, how do you like your MacMini? I am in the market for a new Mac desktop setup to replace my old iMac.
It is one of those things that you always remember about when at home editing those blurry foreground photos! 😆
Haha! Oh the joys of editing family event photos. I had my wife's grandma's 100th birthday party last saturday and spent most of monday doing exactly that ... it's amazing how us photographers can get carried away when we have a camera in our hands!! 😆😆
The mac mini is a great little computer. I would get the one with 16Gb ram though as I often hit the ceiling with the 8Gb version. I hope they bring out a new one soon with either the M2 chip or at least one of the pro, max or ultra chips within.
I hope all is good with you dude. 👍
Good vlog, thanks. I'm with you if in doubt I photo stack (sometimes a bit to much), obviously only if there is a foreground. I suppose it is down to style/taste. A lot of photographers I know say people are getting to obsessed with having photos sharp back to front as though it is bad? I must admit I prefer they are sharp.
Thanks very much!
Most definitely ... it all comes down to taste, but there's nothing quite like a tack sharp photo with great light all wrapped up in a fantastic composition ... doesn't sound too hard does it!! 😆
It's all good fun though. Thanks for watching 😁👍
nice video👍
Thanks very much! 😁👍
Great vid! You said you have a Mac mini with 8 gb and it does the job for you? My PC is very old and I’m considering a new computer. Are you happy with the Mini when running both PS and LR or would you do something else now? Lastly, do you do video editing on it too?
Thanks Katz!
It is fine with lightroom and photoshop ... certain tasks are a little slow and with the really big stitched images, like 9+panos, it struggles and sometimes hits the limit of the 8Gb of ram, but overall I am happy with it.
If I could get it again, I would go for the 16Gb ram version just to have a bit more capacity when having different programs open at the same time.
I do all my video editing on it as well. I do use proxies though, so as soon as I import the videos into Premier Pro, I just make low res h.264 proxies so the editing is a much smoother process.
I hope that helps
Thanks for watching 😁👍
Thanks a lot for this great tutorial !
What would your workflow be in case you need to both focus stack and exposure bracket ?
Thanks !
No worries, glad you liked it!
In that case I would take a set of exposure brackets at each focus point when capturing the photos.
When editing, I would stack the brackets first, and then focus stack the HDR images that come out of those.
In theory, as long as you haven't moved the camera at all between shots, you could do it either way, but as the focus stacking could be different between each shot, I'd do the bracketing process first.
I hope that helps.
Thanks for watching 😁👍
@@mikesphotography Thanks a lot !
Great video, Mike! What a shame Sony doesn’t allow to tap focus and shoot on screen all at once like Canon and .. the Rich GR iiix ….. or build in focus bracketing.
Btw, you are a brilliant Photography & Photoshop tutor.
Thanks so much for your kind words! 🙂
I think the A7iv I have might do that with the touch, focus and shoot ... I just need to get up to speed with all of the settings it has on offer ... 😆🙈
I know they don't have build in focus bracketing though ...
Thanks for watching 😁👍
Given that the depth of field increases rather quickly (I won't go so far as to say exponentially) as you focus further into the scene, I take several close together shots up close, and less further away. I might take 3 or 4 in the near-ground/foreground (depending on the focal length), one in the mid-ground, and one for the background. This has always worked very well for me.
Thanks for the advice Alan. Definitely worth getting more at the closer distances. 👍
Great video Mike! I was wondering if using this technique negates the need to consider hyper focal distances? Or do both methods have pros and cons? Not sure if I’m just using hyper focal distances all wrong.
Good question Alun! I just do this instead of using the hyperfocal distance technique ... if it's all in focus when you focus on the background, no need for the hyperfocal point, and on the other hand, if the foreground is blurry, just stack it. 😁👍
HI. If You look at the horizon after using hyperfocal point technique You will see a lot of softness. try not to use more than f8 and as @Alan May said, remember to take smalll focus points within the first first 10 ft or so, but include a foto, as Mike said, of the horizon.
Clear, concise and well illustrated tutorial, Mike! Good tips along the way round out the post. Nice.
Who makes the L-bracket for your A74?
I’ve used the auto-focus stack method you illustrate for macro shots. Haven’t ventured into “mask building” version, but will give it a go as needed.
As I recall the A74, by default, in playback, will zero in on the focus point used to take the shot. Would that help to ensure that all “target areas” have been taken in focus for a series of photos?
BTW, for iPad display of YT vids, the YT gear icon for vid speed appears in the upper right hand corner😊- just saying. Cheers!
Haha! I did not know that so thanks for letting me know about the gear icon!
I have the smallrig half cage and I have put a peak design QR plate on the side. This means I can still use the flippy screen and get portrait oriented shots easily!
I'm still getting to grips with the A7iv ... should really read the manual, but moving house several times has kind of taken priority ... hopefully were somewhere a bit more settled for now so I can finally learn how to use this camera properly!! 😆 I think it might have the option of touching, focussing and taking the focus in one touch ... but I'll have to look into that as well ...
As always thanks for watching dude, much appreciated 😁👍
You can try what you may, in macro photography you will almost always have areas where you can not capture a focused layer of - it‘s a matter of physics. I have yet to see a single macro stack that isn‘t riddled with those halos around foreground subject areas where it is impossible to capture the layer further away completely.
@@karlgunterwunsch1950 Obviously you are very passionate about this karl ... never fear, I will not mention macro photography again when talking about focus stacking. 🤫
@@mikesphotography I have seen too many failed stacks and produced some myself - until I dove into the optical calculations and they clearly showed that for most macro subjects focus stacking is a futile effort. If you need to document screwthreads then you may have success, if it’s butterflies or orchids or other more complex objects then you are up a creek without a paddle if you want to rely on focus stacking.
@@karlgunterwunsch1950 I’ve had good results w/focus stacking macro shots (e.g., of a sunflower) when using a few dozen images - LR “revolted” when I tried to use more than a certain maximum number of images (can’t recall the number right now).
Great video Mike. How do you determine what aperture to use when focus stacking? Or does it even matter?
Thanks very much Mark.
With aperture, it depends on what lens you have.
With my 28-200mm it bottoms out at f16, so I tend to take the shot I want. Then if I see the foreground is blurry, I'll close the aperture down to f11 at most. Then if the foreground is blurry still, that's when I focus stack.
With the 17-28mm it goes to 22 so I'll take it to f16 and then see what is happening there.
The wider the aperture (the lower the f number) the less will be in focus from front to back.
I hope that makes sense.
😁👍
@@mikesphotography Thanks for your response Mike. I definitely struggle with choosing the right aperture for landscapes. I try to get everything sharp from front to back and typically go with f16, but if there is not enough light, then I have to slow down the shutter speed which can increase the chances of movement, making the photo soft.
It is a tricky one isn't it.
After doing so many corporate headshots pre COVID, I have the opposite problem. I try to keep the aperture wider than I really should. This helps in low light but I have a lot of shots where the foreground is a little blurry.
Do you mostly shoot handheld?
If so, try putting the camera in drive mode and fire off between 5-10 shots ... You'll then have a high chance of getting one tack sharp, that's what I do when the camera is struggling with high enough shutter speeds for sharpness.
I hope that makes sense. 👍
Great video. What is the equipment lets you connect camera vertically to the tripod?
They are commonly known as L-brackets and use the arcaswiss quick release system.
With the a7iv that I have, the flippy screen gets restricted by this, so I have the smallrig half cage and a peak design quick release plate and it works really well.
What camera do you have? Maybe I can give you an idea of what would work best for your system. 😁👍
@@mikesphotography thank you for the information. Is it compatible with R5?
For the R5, I'd either go with an L-bracket like this: amzn.to/3B7Kxqb
But it might get in the way of you using your flippy screen.
If I owned an R5, I'd get something like this isntead:
amzn.to/3uoM47f
Then remove the cable clamp on that bracket and attach a quick release plate like this amzn.to/3uoFzBy to the side of the cage, pushing it as forward as it can go.
Then you'd have a vertical mount with space for the flippy screen to not be impeded.
I hope that helps. 👍
@@mikesphotography thank you for the links. I also found an equipment folding like Z and vertically to mount on a tripod.
Hi Mike! Why did you have to use ND filter for this? trying to learn here. Thanks
Good question Jerome. I used an ND filter as I wanted to smooth out the surface of the water and it was rippling up too much for my liking. If it was darker I would have just changed the settings but it was too bright so I had to add the ND filters.
Thanks for watching 😁👍
Photo stack ph application ..?🤔
There is helicon pro that does the job really well.
Thanks for watching 😁👍
Anyone recommend me a decent camera with 2 lens mostly for landscape photography under 1000$ USD
That is a stretch to get a body and two lenses for under $1000 ... It all depends on how modern you want to go.
If you don't mind using a DSLR, then something like the Canon 6D second hand would be about $500, and then the 70-200mm f4 comes in about $350 and then something like the tamron 24-70mm ... that would work really well for about $1000.
If you wanted a more modern camera, then something like the Sony A6100 or the A6300 with a kit lens or the 18-105mm and a wide prime from samyang ... like the 12mm would give you a great range.
To get great quality with two lenses would mean going second hand though ...
If you wanted to go new, I'd suggest going for one of the A6000 series cameras, probably the 6100 or the 6300, you can get these for under a $1000 with a kit lens and then maybe a prime from samyang again.
I hope that helps.
Thanks for watching 😁👍
@@mikesphotography thank you
I can see the value in this video, but it’s not for me. I would much rather spend a bit of extra time composing to get results in camera, than mess about at home. That said, this is a great tutorial: well thought out and delivered.
Thanks Pete.
Unfortunately photography has always been about "messing about at home" from the dark room with dodging and burning to lightroom in stacking and blending images.
You're right about getting as much right in camera, it's always a good starting point ... but sometimes no matter how long you spend on dialing in your settings, the size of the focal plane that is needed for certain scenes will be outside of the capabilities of any camera/lens combo.
Thanks for watching anyway 😁👍
Please Sir: With APS-C sensor with 20 MP or more, FF with 30 MP or more, DO NOT exceed f8 (some older lenses f11). "Bending" of the light leads to softer images...
Even if SHARPNESS is really not one of the things that makes a picture "good". If I would be asked to critique Your picture - what You didnt do - I would say this: the softness of the first rock helps this wonderfull coposition. Leading line, subject, feeling... colors (balance of).. very good. I like. The eye tends to look at sharp things. On your rock there is nothing special, so no real reason to show it.. In post I use color contrast, sharpnss and luminosity to lead the eye....Like You said, "the everything is sharp technique" is very usefull for macro and product. Thanks for the nice video. And for your audiolevels.
Thanks for your feedback Alex.
With diffraction from smaller apertures, it all depends on the lens you are using. With my primes, I can take them all the way to f16 without any worries, whereas with my 28-200mm, it sits best between f8 and f11.
Thanks for watching and good to know my audio levels are good! 😁👍
@@mikesphotography Since my D850 and a lot of other cameras do stacking, I always use the old film era rule: " two f-stops smaller than max." - an f1,4 lens stopped down to f4 ,
and then set too many steps...Just to be sure.... I'm glad the TB- price keeps falling!
I was to lazy to make a test for all my lens body combos
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Some people think they must increase the audiolevels to keep the people interrested and engaged... But they forget, that they are not making a short video like a commercial, and "scream at me" through the whole 25 minutes review. I think you even took Your time to EQ your voice, AND have an high-pass @ around 60hz - This, I think, is the best indication of Your proffesional attitide.
If I may say, if I listen to a comparison of outdoor vs indoor: You have a bit too much pressure at the lower end on the indoor voice.... For letting me have a quick way to "know that I'm on the right path, I use the TV US (ATSC A/85), -24 LUFS sample wav.... Thanks again🤙👍 greetings from Austria
Thanks for the feedback about my audio Alex. I do struggle with it as there is so much to getting a good sound.
You're completely right about the external audio. I put some compression on it, then some eq with a low pass filter and then normalise to about -3db.
I'll try waht you said with the internal audio ... I'm hopefully getting some decent audio panels in my office soon as well, so this will help with the reverb.
I really appreciate your thoughts as this helps me make better videos.
P.s. Austria is one of our favourite countries to visit! 😁👍
Whenever I hear a landscape photographer mention how good focus stacking works I prepare cringe for the moment he mentions macro photography in the same breath! IT DOESN‘T WORK FOR MOST MACRO SUBJECTS! If you follow that advice for macro photography you‘ll end with detailed shots which are lacking any sense of depth or subject size but more importantly you will end up with horrible artefacts that are impossible to avoid and at the same time are equally impossible to remove without spending days on a single image inventing areas that could not be captured due to the optical laws involved.
In landscape photography this works because the magnification ratio of the focused elements does not change much (depending on the lens but wrought normally don‘t shoot such subjects with long lenses like the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 at the long end where it shows considerable focus breathing). In macro photography it works at low magnification of 1:10 (which nobody would call macro photography most of the time) and at very high magnification beyond 10:1 (like the Canon MP/E 65mm lens with additional extension or a reversed wide angle lens).
Between that, no matter how you achieve focus on your subject layers - using the lens focus or a macro rail - you will get areas of the subject that are occluded by subject elements closer to the camera which inevitably have a bigger magnification ratio when you refocused on the more distant subject area. Those occluded areas will not be included in any layer of your focus stack and thus the final stack will include out of focus areas forming halos around the more distant subject details - regardless if you stack in PS, Helicon Focus, CombineZ or any other focus stacking software. In low magnification it works because the magnification changes through refocusing are negligible, in high magnification the large aperture of the lens when compared to the subject detail will result only in a loss of contrast around the closer subject detail because most of the light will only be subjected to diffraction, not occlusion.
Thanks for your thoughts karl