Focus Stacking with the Sony A7RV
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 มิ.ย. 2024
- Ever since I've been using the Sony A7RV lots of people have been asking me about the focus bracketing function. This video explains it all :)
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
02:06 - How I use focus stacking in the field
07:24 - How to setup the Sony A7RV for focus stacking
14:24 - How to combine the shots in Photoshop
I am a Sony Ambassador and was featured in the European launch trailers for the A7RV camera. You can find the specific launch video with me here: • Sony Alpha 7R V | Expl...
Also make sure to check out my big article with many photos and about the A7RV on my own website: www.albertdros.com/post/the-n...
Gear used in this video:
Sony A7RV: amzn.to/3U0nCDw
Video gear:
Camera: Sony A7SIII : amzn.to/3V0pP3o
Lens : Sony 24mm f/1/4 GM : amzn.to/3Xjs83b
If you like the editing style in my photos and want to learn, check out my Full Editing Course on Landscape Photography:
www.edityourlandscapes.com
Professional Focus Stacking Software:
Helicon Focus : www.heliconsoft.com
If you have any questions, please drop them in the comments and I'll try my best to answer! - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Finally I learned how to do it not only in theory but in practice! Thank you! Quite informative and with no blah-blah-blah.
welcome!
Thank you for explaining focus stacking. I never really understood it, how it worked, or why I should use it until watching your vid.
welcome Derrick!
At last a Sony with focus stacking! Years of waiting. Hope it trickles into the older bodies as well (A1. A7 IV). Why did it take so long to implement is beyond me
Great video! It would be great if Sony would update their other cameras' firmware to support this.
Then you wouldn't buy the new camera.
Agree, I have a Sony A1 and the newest firmware doesn't have this. A $6500 flagship camera purposely is missing software to make the newer cheaper camera more attractive to buy. If they don't add this feature to the A1 soon, instead of getting an A7RV, I'm just going to get a Canon R5.
The Canon R6 Mark ii does this particular function much better. It will even produce the combined focus stacked image on the camera as well.
@@catrelaxationtechnique4466 I will never buy a Sony camera. The company's strange policy makes their product not as future-proof as Nikon/Canon...! Better buy Nikon Z8 than A1
@@Notagain640 This is true. Focus stacking on R6ii is miles ahead of A7rV
Thanks Albert. I received this camera a week ago, I will try all your advice this weekend.
Thank you so much for this wonderful video. I just got the A7RV and wasn't sure how to use the brilliant new focus stacking feature. This gave me an answer. Hope to see more videos like this and see five to the article on your website.
Thanks Helge. I indeed noticed quite some people had questions, so I'm happy to see it was useful for you :)
Thank you Albert,
You are a great instructor, easy to understand for a rookie.
thank you!
Finally a wake up from Sony after a long sleep … ?
Dank je Albert voor de duidelijke bruikbare uitleg 👌, ga met deze informatie aan de slag
Great Video brotha! I learned a lot and now I know what Focus Bracketing is! Thank you!
Thank you for this video 🙏. I was out shooting with my new A7R5 yesterday to test the photo stacking, but was not able to get it to work. The "infinity" distance was all blurry. After watching your video, I changed the number of pictures from 4 to 50 and it worked like a dream 😊.
perfect, so with 4 you were simply not at infinity yet :)
Excellent tutorial. This function is in the a6700 also and I'm eager to try it out. This explained it perfectly - thanks!
awesome!
You're officially my favourite Dutch photographer 😎
Cool to find your channel Albert. This is good stuff. Loving the Dutch accent.
Great job on the video Albert mate; looking forward to more videos from you overtime buddy
Thanks my friend!
It is incredible that this system is handled better by the Mynoltas. They already invented this since the 2016 versions. If you are going to buy this camera for this section, I suggest that you go for the Mynolta that costs 4 times less.
Very nice!!!! Of course Olympus has done it for years and even combine the images in camera for you, if you'd like. But glad Sony is doing it now. Canon and Nikon, time to learn it too!
Perfect! Thanks so much for this video.
You can open it up directly into Ps by going to "File --> Script---> Open files into stack and, after the combining process, save it and then process the final photo in Lr.
Is the sharpness same as using Helicon
I was looking for a comment like this, I knew there must be a simpler method. Thanks.
Great video. Thank you.
Sony please add focus bracketing to the A7IV!
Thanks Albert 💐
Sony A7R5 📷
Ah! After almost 2 years....much thanks Albert for the tutorial. Please post more frequently, if possible. Love your photography and works much.
Thank you! I'll do my best:)
Amazing 👏 work.
Thanks for the review! Love your work!
thank you!
Thank you so much for great tutorial.
Very Helpful !!
Great video. Can’t wait to one day get a a7r5
Lenses used to have a DOF scale on them. A DOF scale is a good way to show folks that a wide angle lens plus F11 or F16 means that everything from about 1 m out is in focus.
Back in the film days photo journalists would often have a 35mm lens set at F11 or F16 with the focus taped or glued from 1m - then they just had to point and shoot. Plus for newspaper photos, who cared if you could golf with the grain (noise) in the photo.
Great tutorial video. I am glad that Sony is finally offering in camera focus stacking. I wonder if focus stacking could be combined with pixel shift. I wish that my A1 had in camera focus stacking. So many great A7R V features, focus stacking, pixel shift, insect AF - I guess I will have to get this camera soon.
For goodness sakes, why doesn't Sony upgrade the A1 firmware to include all the new features? It's their FLAGSHIP, Christ's sake!!!!
You can’t combine bracketing with pixel shift 😢
Hi, Albert! (Linda Henderson of Iceland trip 2/2024 with Gary and Don). I just purchased my a7R5 this weekend and am spending time fixing all of my camera settings and preferences! Thanks for this video and I look forward to trying out the in-camera focus-stacking. Be well.
Awesome Linda! If you have any other questions please let me know!
Albert nice video thnks
amazing! thank you so much!
Cheers, very helpful
A lot of you are asking how I open the RAW files, so I made a short article about it: www.albertdros.com/post/how-to-open-your-a7rv-raw-files
Edit: Now works with LR :)
Yes works nicely and smooth, great tip !!!
Ps like in the example with '...ARW -r DIRECTORY' it's better to write ...M4" -ext ARW -r ' and not ...M4" -ext ARW -r' or an empty character after the ...-r
Thank you very much since LR is my workhorse. Found out that it worked well by exporting tiff files from Luminar but produced huge files (psd and dng exported files worn't recognised by Lightroom).
hello sir,
I am a new youtuber. You should help me to choose the best and clearest camera for this. Cooking scope (outside shooting) Which gives the clearest video footage? sony A74 or iPhone 14 pro Max...?? or (🤔...sony a7r5)
Great Video!
Thanks for the explanation.
I only hope there is new firmware upgrade for A7 iv...
Thanks for the info! I had a Canon that did this in-camera, but switched to Sony last year and really missed it. It seems that even my old Sony A6600 has this feature and I didnt know it!
Nice feature, unfortunately it's not built in A7IV. With my old Fuji X-T2 I shot landscapes with focus stacking even handheld and result is very good.
Lekker bezig! Smaakt naar meer en dat gaat er ook komen zo te horen 😬
Thanks Roy :D
Thank you!
Thank you for the help! Couldn't find the answer to this question within Sony Imaging Edge or Adobe Photoshop's help manuals. Everyone seems to suck at search tools, but Google. lol
I had to look up for your website (does not show in your TH-cam bios). Your pics are amazing. Hopefully I can attend one of your workshops in the future.
great video thanks. I am about to shoot the Oregon Coast travelling from Canada in our RV
Thank you for the tutorial! You made it seem so much easier than how I imagined this process to work! I'll have to give it a try!
Thanks!
Photoshop works okay if the foreground is smooth and not too busy, if you have leaves, bushes or anything with complex depth, it's better to use dedicated focus stack software such as zerene.
Love this video, thank you! However infinity is unreachable sir.😊
THANK YOU
Albert I love that you're wearing the jacket from November's Iceland Photo Camp!
I've gotten my hands on a Sony A7RV and am looking forward to exploring all these new features - and your videos!
What about using Luminar NEO to process the focus stack images?
I've only tried it out this week, and works great actually!
Great video Albert, finally a TH-cam video for landscape photographers on the A7RV. Is there raw support in lightroom yet? Also, can you use an a74 L-bracket with the a7rV?
Would love to see a demo of pixel shift now that it's more usable. Thanks bro!
Hi Wade, nice to see you here :) You can use exiftool to batch rename exifdata to that of the RIV, and then it works fine :) And yes, I am using my RIV L-bracket without any issues! Might drop some more videos with the R5!
@@AlbertDrosPhotography appreciate it Albert! Keep up the great videos. Well done!
Hello Albert, First of all, I love your pictures! Then regarding to this feature you have in the A7RIV, do you know if Sony has implemented this in the Sony A7iv as well ?
thats sickk
👍 great 👍
Very good job as always, I'm thinking of investing in this camera and in a sigma 105 mm dg dn art macro lens, that's why the focus stacking option is really welcome in my opinion. What do you think of this combo for the macro? I think that with high definition it is possible to crop without too much loss of quality or by using the super 35mm mode it is possible to be even closer on certain subjects. Thanks ;)
I guess that's good :) i don't have a experience with the sigma. Using the sony 90mm macro myself
Olympus (em system) do this focus stacking more easily and do AUTOMATICALLY in body the assembling process and give you directly the result without the need of Photoshop !
If you are not satisfied there is the olympus free software enabling to do a select assembling
So that’s basically a game changer for macro / landscape photographers?? Sweet one more reason to get the rv
Thanks so much for this video.
Do you know if this can be done in Photoshop Elements?
@AlbertDrosPhotography, it's nice Sony finally implemented the focus shift mode. It is also nice now you can shoot more than 30 sec in the bulb timer. 2 of the most handy features for landscape/nightscape photography that Sony missing in years. HOWEVER, why Sony doesn't let you shoot focus shift more than 30 sec? When you shoot landscape or astro landscape at night. You can't focus your subject unless you shine lights onto it. But in most cases, you don't want to do that at night for many reasons. I thought the focus shift shooting could solve this problem brilliantly in the dark environment. All you needed to do is to focus the ground right in front of you and let the camera taking care of the rest without actually shine the lights to focus on the main subject that is far away from you. Unfortunately it's not the case. Because Sony won't allow me to shoot more than 30 sec in the dark with focus shift mode. And we all know 30sec is not good enough to get a noise free or low noise photo when you shoot nightscape. What a shame. I believe Nikon and Canon already had this feature working in the dark environment flawlessly. I hope Sony will add this in their future firmware updates.
Yes, too bad 30 seconds is the limitation. Completely agree with you. More than 30 sec with focus stacking would be welcome for night shooting.
Good to see this is now possible in the new A7R5. What about the A7R4? How did you do this before A7R5 came out? Just manually switching focus points?
Hope this will also come in new firware for A7R4.
yep, just manually select focus points via touch :)
Thanks for the video, I just tested it out and my Sony a7rV recorded the images at two different resolutions. I've done a search but haven't found an explanation for why. Have you experienced this? Could it be my cards are too slow? Thnaks David
Great video can you do focus stacking with long exposure like to blur out waterfalls and keep everything in focus
Absolutely!
Thanks Albert for the useful information - I think it’s time to upgrade from my A7R3 😀
oh yes the R5 is a very nice upgrade from the R3. But the R3 is still a great cam :)
Can you add a new folder for normal bracketed shot sequences too? They should have the option for both.
I just picked up a6700 and it has this feature. Hope the a1 FW updates includes this. Can you tell me if this shoots these RAW or just JPG?
Excellent tutorial. Thanks. Do you have any concerns about diffraction when using f11 or f14?
Not so much no. Only after f14
I want this feature so bad. Ugh, anyway, if they could only add live exposure compositions to do light painting shots, I would be completely sold on a7r5
Great video Albert. One question, does the Focus Mode matter? I mean should you change the Focus Mode setting to AF-C whenever you use Focus Bracketing?
does not matter
Thank you so much for this video! Will this still work ok if you edit the raw images before bringing them into photoshop. I prefer to make most of my adjustments to the RAW images first. As long as you don't crop or change lens compensations etc should it work ok?
yes for sure. I actually forgot to mention that. Better to do it that way.
Great video - thanks for the video, but how did you open the RAW files in LR Classic ? It seems that the A7Rv RAW isn’t supported yet ? What magic did you do ?
Check some other comments. I replied a few times. It's with a tool called exiftool :)
Is the a7rv good for videos? Can you please do a testing being videographer (Full frame vs Super 35)?
Great video mate 👍 Slightly off topic question... Do you turn the IBIS and/or lens stabilisation when using troop and focus stacking, especially for long exposures? Thank you!
I don't. Lots of people say that sometimes it's better to turn off IBIS but I never encountered issues with it during longer exposures.
Now if only the A1 had this! 😀😭
I shoot jewelry with an A7IV, and Laowa 90mm macro, manual lens, aperture at F11, and flash. I take between 10 - 20 shots, to get all parts of the metal ring, & gems in focus by moving the focus point, punching in with the magnifier button on the camera, and manually adjusting the focus on the lens. Will this new function of the A7RV be able to automate this for me using my manual lens, or will i need the Sony 90mm autofocus macro lens?
It doesn't work with manual lenses. You will need the Sony one (or any other autofocus lens)
Hello Albert
What would be your 1 lens choice if you had to shoot wildlife bronze art and taxidermy art at a very high level. I will be buying the Sony 7rv. But I am honestly not sure what lens or 2 would be the very best lens for the project? 5:30
Albert, Thank you for great video. Tell me please, what kind of camera strap do you use? Your camera strap doesn't look like the strap that came with Sony A7RV.
It's a peak design strap :)
Great job as usual .. watched this video for the 3rd time your workflow is fantastic .. I would like to know if you have done some focus bracketing with telephoto lenses and with cameras that don’t have this feature .. like A7R IV .. in general how big is The difference between wide-angle lens is and telephoto lenses? How many images should I take at 400mm with 100-400 for example at 5.6 .. it’s pretty shallow DOF at that range and aperture ? Or should I use PhotoPills and calculate DOF and then decide .. I would like to hear your advice :) thanks
Thank you. With telephoto lenses it gets tricky doing it manual. You will want to use a narrow aperture of at least f/14 for that. If you're shooting at f/5.6 with 100-400 you're never gonna get it right. You would require 50+ shots , and doing that manually is difficult.
@@AlbertDrosPhotography i see.. with F14 or so is 4-6 images is enough like wide angle ? Or I should take more just in case ..
Hi DAlbert, I'm struggling to connect A7RV to the computer for shooting products. I can't connect to image edge, smartshooter4, or zoom. I'm using the same settings as I did fir the A7rIV. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks for sharing! Can focus stacking be used in combination with exposure bracketing?
Probably not with the automatic focus bracketing. You would have to shoot several exposure brackets while manually adjusting the focus each time.
Great video, Is this the only Sony Camera with this feature? Also does it have Multiple exposure mode like Canon?
Not that kind of multiple exposure no. And yes, for now it's the only one.
Albert, Very nice Video. Thank you for the instructions. I just got my Sony A7R v yesterday. My questions are
How did you get ARW files in Lightroom? Did you use Exiftools to covert to A7Riv files or something?
I think I saw a L-bracket on your camera, where did you get that?
Thank you in advance.
Kirit Vora
please check the pinned comment for your answer :) L-bracket I am using Sunwayfoto A7R4 bracket.
Mooie video, duidelijk uitgelegd. Meteen uitgeprobeerd met mijn Sigma macro 105 lens, helaas blijft alleen het ingestelde focus punt scherp en gebeurt er verder niets
Werkt het alleen met Sony lensen.dat zou wel heel erg jammer zijn
Thanks gor this useful explanation.
Do we still get highest quality of uncompressed RAW out of this Focus Stacking mode?
yes sure, whatever you set up :)
Hey there! I am looking for some insight or advice on a lens to use with sony that does well with macro and landscapes! What should I consider looking for a lens that works really well with both of these types of photography. Do you have any videos about this?
I have a video on the 70-200 macro. Check that one :)
hi is there a good tutaural out there for sony using the RMT-P1BT to photo stack using other Sony Cameras eg A9.
Would love to know these locations your shooting at
Hoi Albert
Vraag werkt de focus bracketing ook met een manuele macrolens?
Great video, very well explained, how do you open RAW files from the A7R5 in Lightroom?
please check this link :) www.albertdros.com/post/how-to-open-your-a7rv-raw-files
@@AlbertDrosPhotography Thank you very much it works, on MAC and WINDOWS. You have just gained a subscriber.
@@d.m.3669 Thank you, much appreciated!
nice, why you dont use the electronic shutter on that?
Can you use the Focus Stacking feature using APSC mode?
The focus stacking does not always focus to infinity. Please pass this to Sony engineers. Digilloyd said Sony focus Stacking is broken. Mark Galer replied this to my comment about failure to focus to infinity: " I think this feature can best be described as ‘work in progress’"
I’m wondering if Sony brings out a firmware update for the A7r4 for this feature
❤❤
Could you clarify things please, you said regarding focus stacking that the A7RV starts stacking from the nearest select af point and then just keeps going until infinity is reached, for macro work at 1 to 1 magnification wouldn't this then mean a huge amount of wasted frames as at 1/1 infinity is an extremely long way away. Please let me know as I've been thinking about switching to a Fuji XT-4/5 whereby you simply select the nearest and furthest distances for front to back sharpness of your subject and the camera then automates the entire process and terminates the bracket when the furthest selected point is reached. Very Nice
You are very right. But you can also select a maximum number of shots. Or simply stop it when you see the focus is already far past the subject regarding macro.
Thank you very much, great video!
I love my sony A1 and the lens selection but frankly their lack of substantial/meaningful firmware updates is embarrassing!
Even for their "Flagship camera".
Focus breathing compensation came out with A7SIII (OCT 2020)and still not available for the A1!!!! So I don't see this function making its way to other models.
Also $1200 CF express type A card is disgusting!!!!!
Don't worry you can buy a heavily sanctioned A7RV, because your A1 is now too old. Then you can buy A1 mkII which will cost at this rate £9000 and so on.
my A7RV only has the following two bracket order settings: 0>->+ and ->0>+ Any idea why mine lacks the 0>+ ?
nice video. But how do i avoid focus breathing? Which camera/lens pair can i use to avoid this issue?
You don’t. It’s a problem in common with most lenses and cameras. The software assembling the stacked images adjusts for focus breathing.
how is the low light and high iso performance on the a7r5 ?
Thanks for the video, I was originally wondering if it worked with autofocus which you answered. One question, when using focus bracketing is there a way to also shoot with exposure bracketing?
No that's not possible:)
Ah shucks, what method do you use in that case? Shoot another focus bracketed stack at a lower EV?
@@nealgrosskopf I actually never use that. Because normally you would only need to focus stack the foreground. So you run the focus stack, and then just take a bracket for the sky :)
@@AlbertDrosPhotography That's very simplistic. In more complex scenes, with more interesting light, one often has elements beyond the camera's dynamic range, ie, need to bracket and stack. As well, sadly, it doesn't seem to work with pixel shifting either. Bummer Sony's software is so limited! Still need to use Helicon Remote stacking, tethered.
Hey, can You please check there is possibility to make focus stacking with silent shutter mode (electronic shutter) - and make it more faster ? i want to use this option for macro photography. Olympus has this option, but i want to use FF body. Thanks in advance for reply
On electronic shutter the speed of the shots is exactly the same, so unfortunately not super fast.
@@AlbertDrosPhotography If you set the shutter speed to i.e. 1/1000 - how many pictures per second can be achieved?
is it better to take your photos in raw or jpeg for stacking? I'm kind of lazy to edit pics so i normally just save in jpeg and do light editing.
if you normally do that than you can just shoot in JPG. For stacking, it really doesn't matter in what format you shoot :) It works the same way in RAW as in JPG.
Sony A7IV available same option?