Macro focus stacking: How I do it and why I failed
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 เม.ย. 2022
- Macro focus stacking using Photoshop is a great way to get sharp images that still maintain a shallow depth of field on the background. They can be easy to do once you get the technique right, but today's video shows how you can go wrong.
I had my composition set up and my camera locked down on my tripod, but I still managed to mess up taking the images I needed to blend, which meant my final image after I'd merged the shots in Photoshop didn't look great.
But I think this mistake makes for just as good a lesson on where things can go wrong and I hope you can learn from my bad form to take better shots of your own.
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#Macro #Tutorial #Focusstacking
Hi Andrew. Someone has already mentioned that the tiny green cups are lichens. Lichens are symbiotic organisms formed by the association of a fungus and microscopic algae. The visible part is the fungus. The "grassy bit" next to the lichen is a moss, so a true plant. Thank you for this very informative video. There are tons of "how-to" videos on TH-cam, but precious few really useful "how-not-to". It's really important to show and explain mistakes, I agree that you always learn more from mistakes than successes.
Great informative response! I just wanna add that it's called "Pixie Cup" lichen, which is adorable!
These are pixie cups, Cladonia specie of lichen. Great video - I photograph these too, and too many times I have missed my focus stacks too.
Thanks Kenneth, glad I'm not alone in this then! I hope I stumble on some more and can do them justice. Beautiful little things.
Another thing I noticed from your video is the childish enthausiasm we share when stumbling on something new. Only after looking back at the pictures I usually realise what makes the image work, or not work. When I first started with macro photography, I was so excited about everything small that it was impacting the end result. 'Oooh, a nice looking bug... Let's photograph it before it walks / flies away'. I was disappointed when I 'missed the oportunity', it caused me to rush things. After a few thousand pictures (maybe a few more), I have learned to plan my pictures, enjoy that moment, and don't feel bad when I've set up everything and the bug flies away. I know a new opportunity could show up on the next leaf. Also, when looking back at the images on the computer, you learn more about the subject and think of new ways to capture it, new things to try.
This video was so recognisable. 😊
Keep showing the mistakes it all helps us lesser photographers.
Sadly I'm sure I have many many more mistakes to show!
Yep, very helpful. I've done the exact same thing; seems to be a mood I get in - a 'that should be enough' mood. Like yesterday, an hour of shooting too few frames. My wife, the ruthless viewer kept tapping the trash can till all gone bye bye. Tomorrow I'll do it again w/o coffee.
For the Canon or Nikon user that doesn't have a camera that does focus stacking, I use Helicon Remote with a small 6" tablet using the WIFI of my camera. Click on the front of the subject and on the back and HR will automatically calculate the number the number of slides and then will start taking photos at each Depth of Field point. It's really slick and eliminates missing an out-of-focus part of the subject. Works well with extension tubes too.
I'm glad for your sincerity, it says a lot about you. I have learned more than if you had succeeded in stacking. Next time, I will remember your video and pay more attention to the composition and take more photos. Thanks for your videos Andrew.
Thanks so much, I'm glad it was helpful!
i bought macro lens and flash because of your videos now im learning. Thanks a lot for helping newbie like me.
We have all been there. I have done it myself. Nice to see you left this in so others can learn what not to do.
Thanks for showing how shots can be unsuccessful. I'd agree that this type of content is at least as informative as a video of a satisfactory final image. If you'd have produced a fully focused image by taking 20 individual shots, I may have thought 'that could have been done with fewer' whereas this 'fail' shows what is actually necessary for success.
Thanks for sharing 👍 I tride to handheld taking some quick shots for stacking of a spider (still not made that video yet) but after I tried with low aperture number I saw it was very blurry so I went a little higher number and was able to get a decent image of only 5 images (should have done more but felt lazy, something I kind of regret today). I actually bought a macro slider that I still never tried, I should have tried it out that time, because the spider were dead so I had the time.. Never mind, We will get our second chance some day 😄👌👍
I made the same mistake of not taking enough photos of the subject despite using f/6.3 in one of my very first focus stacking photos. Very helpful too see it being discussed here.
My gut told me "He didn't take enough pictures" LOL!!!
Man thank you for sharing this! I've been on the fence about subing to lightroom and photoshop. My next adventure is stacking...so this is perfect!
Your gut is spot on!!
Maybe the shot was a failure, but the video certainly wasn’t. There is a lot to learn from it. Thank you for sharing. It’s really helpful
Thanks so much, An, I appreciate that!
Very honest of you to post a mistake, Andrew. I believe that making a mistake once gives you the possibility of making a better mistake the next time. Very useful video as always, thanks.
Thanks for watching! I'm hoping to have learned from this experience and very pleased if others can learn from it too!
Very good instructional piece. I tend to take far more images than I need and when stacking I select the ones I really need to show the image I want. While I'm not a fan of chimping macro work almost demands immediate review especially when you're "in the wild" and not in a controlled space or tethered. Reviewing the shots, even quickly, allows your eye to "walk through" the focus lines and let you know right off if you have enough images, your DOF is proper for each image, and if your composition is what you've plotted.
A valuable, and well explained failure like this is VERY valuable. Well done.
Thanks Andrew. This is a very helpful video. “Success” videos are great but they can often make things look easier to capture than they are. This one shows what I’m sure is a very common problem. I’m just getting into macro and I love your channel.
Very honest, very helpful, thank you!!
I just came across this video and enjoyed it very much. You have a new subscriber! I am beginning to do some ‘forest macro’ and have the luxury of a camera that focus stacks (R5) and an EF 100 macro. With this combination I have been able to get handheld ‘stacks’ of up to 16 photos on still days while hand holding the camera. Doesn’t always work but more hits than misses. Cheers
I like your sincerity, this is really a good lesson for us. Thank you!
This was a great video! Thank you for showing the mistakes as well. Love your videos
I am glad you made this video as this is a good example that LR and PS techniques can and will fail as times. The fact the images were not good enough for PS is so true ! Lol
Great video Andrew and the most important thing was to understand your mistake, i did a similar stack and took 5 images, then realised back home it needed at least 30 minimum. keep'em coming.
Thanks so much! It's definitely a lesson learned for me. Or I hope so, anyway!
Andrew, spot on for allowing your audience know what the problem is and how you diagnosed it...sometimes it is the simple things that make people understand complex issues.
I greatly appreciate the “lessons learned” video, and all your content for that matter.
Great video Andrew with good advice. Also encouraging to see that photographers with much greater ability than myself also make mistakes!
Andrew, awesome video. I think there is far more value in this kind of video, exploring mistakes, than the type of video that gets everything right. I honestly learned a lot more here.
Like you said in your video, what a great teaching opportunity this gives us. With this kind of mistake we learn much more than with a regular tutorial. A great thanks to have used it.
thanks a lot Andrew ! Very interesting..
Awesome video and thanks for sharing. I really learned a lot from this video.
I've learned so much from your video, thanks for sharing!!!
Great video, thank you. I finally found great forest macro content. I love shooting cladonia and you had an excellent image despite the missed focus shots. Keep it a coming, great content.
Good video. I do have to say though because macro is so sensitive to any movement, I always try to use a remote trigger vs touching the camera when I'm doing macro work.
That's good practice. Usually I use the 2 second timer for the same reason. Not sure why I didn't this time round. Laziness on my part, I assume!
At f/2.8 the plane of focus is so small that the focus point needs several small shifts and maybe around 30 images and it is easy to shift focus too far in one shift.
Thank you for sharing this anyways! I’ve been enjoying your series of videos on macro photography!
Thanks very much!
We are our own worse critics. Most people wouldn't even notice that fault and would appreciate the beauty. It's always important for us to self critique and learn and improve, but I think it's ok to share natures beauty even if our technique is imperfect.
I've moved from Fuji to Canon and the biggest disappointment is the focus stacking.
The Fuji method lets you set the near focus point and the far focus point and then it works out how many images you need based on the aperture and then takes them - you can even set a time delay between each shot to allow the camera to settle down after shifting the focus!
The Canon method is just antiquated in comparison.
In every other way the Canon is better FOR ME but I do miss that awesome focus stacking sometimes.
That does sound like a good feature and not one I even knew existed! I do like the manual approach though of not having to dive through any menus etc and just do the focusing myself -- as long as I can actually be bothered to take enough shots, which clearly I couldn't be here!
“Big sip.” Nice. Good vid, and kudos for highlighting an error and how to learn from it. Humble but super helpful.
THE THANKS
Great lesson and definitely happened to me (even recently). Not taking enough photos is a big problem. My issue was not as severe and was able to save it using a bit of clone stamp and content aware fill.
In my experience what works best is to use a focus rail (no need to go expensive, NiSi and Sunwayfoto sell them for around $100) and move the camera instead of moving the focus points. Some advantages:
1. No focus breathing issues and layer alignment problems
2. As you progressively move through the image, the focus plane is more apparent and consistent. Thus, reducing the chance of missing a focal plane altogether. Jumping focus points is erratic and difficult to see if you miss anything in between.
Another great tool for me has been Helicon Focus 8. Amazing tool and does a more precise focus stack than PS in almost all conditions.
Hi Diego, trying to figure this out. I have a rail that only goes back and forth. When you move forth, do you have to focus every time again or not? Starter in macro using a rail here 🙂
@@heinz4841 no need to re-focus. In this case the camera is moving instead of the lens focal point.
If you have a macro lens, focus at the 1:1 magnification point at front of the subject and use the rail moving from front to back. The camera is focused at a fixed point and as you move the camera forward that focus point will be moving along with it across the image. Move is predictable increments and make sure your depth of field is wide enough to cover those moving increments.
This was helpful.... I have attempted stacking yet as I am just now learning about it. Thank you again for taking the time to make these great, teaching, videos! From Florida, USA!
Really like your videos and this one is no exception! It is very, very refreshing to see a photographer who doesn't afraid to share the mistakes as well! Thank you for it, note taken to take enoguh images! :)
Thanks so much! I'm sure I could fill an entire channel just with the mistakes I make!!
The audio in studio was marvelous.
Oh geez, how many times has that happened to me…those OOF stripes. When stacking Something like this I’ll take one shot wide open (for the foreground\background) and then stop down a bit and do the stack for the subject. Then combine the one wide open with the stacked subject- mask then only reveal the subject. Great video though
A good combo and I did end up using some of the f/16 shot I used as an example to bring back some details on the shot I used for the video thumbnail, but even that didn't get things perfect!
Excellent video!!!! Always good to know when we don't get it right.
Hey Andrew. Your channel is my favorite Macro one. Here is where I both learn a lot and really enjoy it. This particular video is so helpful and actually demonstrates the benefit of learning from one's mistakes. I still wonder why you decided to use an f/2.8 aperture? Thanks. I'm looking forward to your next one.
This is probably even more helpful to a newbie like me - thanks for sharing it.
Great Video Andrew, I wish more photographers would do vid's like this. I always learn more from mistakes :)
Thank you for sharing.
Kevin
Thanks Kevin, I really appreciate that!
Thanks for the video, you are right, the failure highlights the things that can go wrong and gives a better understanding of the process. I've just done my first 2 focus stacks and I'm not that impressed with the results but I know why thanks to your vid. I am using a canon r6 which makes things easier but you still have to input some parameters. Also with any picture framing and composition are key.
Great Video Andrew! From my experience with focus stacking, I've noticed that Photoshop is unfortunatelly a very avarage tool for the job, especially since we're paying for the industries finest. Other software developers have cought up with Adobe and offer some great tools that are not subscription based, and in this case it is Helicon Focus. Yes, another thing to buy, but I don't regret a singe penny. Maybe you didn't take enough photos, but maybe photoshop just didn't do a good job, because complex scenes likes this is it's weak point. I've had the exact same issue and I solved it with Helicon Focus. I hope this helps someone.
Great video, although the result wasn’t perfect. In this world of perfectionism it’s great to see honest people talking about there failures and what the learnings are. Thats much more useful than seeing a perfect image as intended in the first place - especially as I run into the same kind if issue and I did blame Photoshop doing a bad stacking job 😂
Thank you for sharing!!! It gets frustrating to see all the “perfect” shots. This was very valuable. And I learned why maybe my photostacking is not working….
Great tutorial nice to see you are human thanks very much for sharing.
Andrew, a very good video and resonates with me after I had a similar experience yesterday ….I also found Photoshop isn’t the greatest at stacking, so constantly having. to check whether it was me of Photoshop. I must download the free trial for Zerene Stacker to see whether I can justify the cost. With an AF lens, does the camera have focus bracketing capability? I have a manual focus lens, so can take advantage of the bracketing function in camera
Your not the first nor the last to have a focus stack fail, believe me, I'm always failing lol. Great video Andrew!
As long as we all suffer together then I think that takes the sting out of it! Thanks so much for watching, Stewart!
@@AndrewLanxonPhotography I love showing my mistakes on my videos.
Really helpful thank you
Glad to be of service, thanks for watching!
Thank you for this video, it’s great to see and learn what not to do! I haven’t done a focus stack yet but when I do this video will be in my mind. Thanks again. Oh and would you mind telling me what tripod you use? TIA
Your mistake was my learn. Thanks for sharing!
I'm sure you know very well, but it might be worth mentioning, that keeping a focus rail (something like a relatively inexpensive Manfrotto 454 or Velbon Slider) in your camera bag might be a good option. This provides a more precise way of focus shifting than manually focussing the lens itself.
Absolutely, that would definitely help. Problem is I'm often quite lazy/complacent when taking shots and I could so easily have just taken more images here and solved the issue entirely. Instead, I just assumed I had what I needed and moved on, so I probably wouldn't even have considered setting up the rails to begin with! Lesson learned. Maybe.
@@AndrewLanxonPhotography Yeah, laziness, and the lack of a battery kit, is what prevents me from taking a Stackshot on field trips (ie, strolls in the countryside ;)
Great video
Thank you!
I've been using a macro rail for things I shoot around the house, and still manage to miss areas... probably a lack of patience on my part and moving the camera too far for some of the shots. Haven't tried one outside yet, should be doing that once spring decides to come out in full instead of teasing us with the occasional nice day.
I think a lack of patience is 100% my problem here -- I thought "Yep, that's got it" and just moved on!
Hi Andrew, I used to have that issue for an insane amount of time, and I found my mistake on that particular matter.
Focus stacking works perfectly along the Y axis, but not along the X or Z. One can get some time a fairly usable on either X or Z at a very small aperture from f/13 to f/22. But even so, you have to cloning.
Thank you
Think you'd need more like 70+ shots for macro. Good video.
I do most of my macro with a Nikon z7 ll which provides automated stacking were I provide the number of shots required and the interval needed. Mirrorless guarantees no slap. Off camera flash if needed or desired. Easy as can be. I still do screw up but take my ass back there for some redemption. Looking forward to your resurrection.
Nice! Do you find it quick to use? As in,if you found, say, an insect on location, do you think you'd be able to use an automated process or would that insect fly off before you even got your first frame?
Hi Andrew, I am still figuring this out, but what I noticed is that you always, correction, most of the times, take a shot by tapping your lcd-screen. This causes motion blur. I use a remote control, so nothing on my camera moves
Hi Heinz, you are correct that this is how I usually take my shots, but I also use the two second timer to make sure that there is no motion blur from me touching the screen. It's a handy technique if you don't have a remote!
I enjoyed the video. As is often said, one learns more from failures than from successes. Is your R5 in for repair? The automated focus stacking on the might have saved this session.
That's absolutely true and I'll hopefully make many more mistakes to keep on learning from! I don't have an R5 permanently I'm afraid but fairly often borrow one, depending on what I'm up to at the time. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Great video. I’m heading out tomorrow to try my hand at macro for the first time since the beginning of this new year. I will keep this video in mind because I do plan to try my hand at my first focus stacking on something I find tomorrow. Yay! As always, thanks Andrew.
Thanks Tamara, good luck with getting your focus stack shots!
Hello Andrew,
As always excellent video; failure or otherwise. My only question is; why didn't let the camera do the heavy-lifting versus you doing a "MANUAL" focus stacking?
Cheers!👨
Do you mean doing an auto focus stack with the camera? If so, I was shooting on a Canon 5D Mk IV here which didn't have an auto focus stack function (or at least mine didn't). So I did it the manual way and did not do it very well!
On the newer cameras, you can use focus bracketing in the camera directly. Set the number of exposures and other parameters and let it rip. Does that work well, or is it pretty hit or miss, since you don’t actually set the focus points? Like many others have already commented, I learn more from the failures than the successes. Good work!
The newer cameras, I read about them. At this time I have a Nikon D7500 with corresponding lenses - now looking for such a camera where I can use my glass. Hard to find. Any idea?
is there Any benefit of a focus stack to a simple closed aperture f18 or f22 if your gear/light allows you to?
Did the same thing a lot. Do you think a focus stacking slider would be good?
Hey, you have to be carefull with focus shifting! Do you know cameras have automatic focus shift function?
Thank you for the video. It is a lichen, Cladonia species. The ’ grass ´ are mosses. Lovely subjects
Thank you!
Where do you store all your photos? In the cloud or just your local drive?
oo clever way to mark where your stack starts by putting your hand in the image.
i'm not knocking Canon but most Nikons have focus stacking built in and it works really well...
The way you proceed for focus bracketing is tedious. I suggest that you try the method I use for hand held focus bracketing scenes with moving insects. I set the camera to high speed burst. Then I focus at the closest part of the subject, then a little bit closer. You can test how far to focus before the shot as a practice. Once I'm well steadied, I keep the shutter button pressed while regularly turning the focusing ring towards infinity, until I get past the area of interest. With my set up (Canon 90D, CRaw format) I can get up to 35 photos before the buffer quits. This is done in 4 seconds or less. It may take some practice to get the right focus shift pace. Once back home, you can cull the useless pictures at the start and at the end, and proceed with the actual focus stacking.
I have problems with halos around the stack in Helicon focus and don't know how to overcome those. I take around 60-100 shots so number of shots are not the problem, but they stack with some halos around some objects.
also if you stack a bunch of 2.8 shots, does that make it a bokehrama?
Don't worry this is a common error even with experienced focus stackers. The cups are a Lichen, a Pixie cup Cladonia species. The "grass" is actually a Moss. I couldn't tell you the species off the top of my head.
Experienced focus stackers will actually use a micrometer driven stage slide for high magnification, wide aperture stacks, because focus rails don't have that level of precision. For this wide aperture type stack, you need to take far more images, with smaller increments, and don't worry about having overlapping images.
2 years on.. But that is Goblet lichen..
The more I shoot focus stacks, the more I realize how many source images you need. It's easy! Ten times as many as you think.
Hi, I'm new to macro photography so please forgive my question. For this photo there were not enough images at the different focus points to achieve the desired results. However an image was taken with a much greater depth of field. It is difficult to see from the TH-cam video but it looks as if the parts of the image that are wanted as sharp where contained within that image. Why not blend that one, using selections and masks, with some of the others to achieve the desired outcome?
Hi Roy! That's a very good observation and that's actually something I did do for the image I used as the video thumbnail -- the f/16 version did have a bit more sharpness in part of the scene, but even then it didn't have 'full coverage' of the areas I needed in focus, so I would still have needed to stack the image at that aperture, which I didn't do as I took just one image at f/16 as an example. The only real solution to getting the shot I wanted was to be more patient on the day and make sure I take all the shots I need when out in the field. Trying to 'fix it in post' often only goes so far with these kinds of images. Hope that answers your question, and thanks for watching!
how about you leave the tripod for landscape and get a flash and diffuser for macro :)
Trumpet cup lichen / Cladonia fimbriata
Amazing, thank you!
Okay Okay
Cladonia sp (lichen)
Look for the ones that are red inside the cups: elf cups, edible!
Get a Nikon mirrorless and it will do all focus stacking shots for you 😉
Happily taking donations for one ;)
@@AndrewLanxonPhotography LOL. I'm always open to donations too
They are called Elf cups 😀
You are essentially correct and simultaneously fundamentally still no wiser. Please let me explain. And before I do, let me say that this methodology is extremely meticulous, just plain hard to do accurately enough and fraught with peril for the entire process (so many ways to fail). So to add briefly how macro-photographers do it (I am not a macro-photographer, but I use their techniques to do another form of photography - more later):
You did indeed need to take more images, however, your assumption that you should do this by selecting focus points from the image, that you presume to be appropriate and adequate is fundamentally still flawed. This is a technical/mathematical problem to solve and it requires a solution that is suitably technical. This involves consideration: this involves manually focusing at distances into the scene at increments of distance; given the aperture, focal length and therefore depth of field achieved between each of these sequential focus points into the scene. This is to say that DOF is layered by every shot you focus to and shoot not by what you think will be sufficient but rather governed by how your lens achieves depth of field at a given aperture. Added to this you need to have precise feedback on what your your focus distance is at any given moment so that you can guarantee that you are hitting those focus points exactly as prescribed for the lens you are using; given the aperture you are using. So yeah not easy.
Macro-photographers use a precise platform (incrementally marked), on which the camera+lens are mounted - which they re-focus (manually) from just before start to just after the full depth of field you wish to use to achieve the focus depth you want to achieve the artistic composition you see in your mind. Technical, not hit and miss. And yeah that is a lot per-meditated effort including trial and error, for the result. A lot of discipline and a lot of luck.
The additional problems are environmental movement in the frame for the entire duration of the process; environmental changes in exposure for same. Or you can just get a Phase ONE system and it'll do it all as you require, though I have not had that opportunity to test that, so am not sure if the embedded software uses this methodology or not. I suspect not, I think change in focus distance is set just once and you don't get to change that throughout the focus depth you want to achieve. And of course the depth of field in non-linear given focus distance, so yeah, not sure those guys over there have that understood from a macro usage and more specifically from pov of my usage.
I use this for precise focus in landscapes, and I combine that with panorama methodology, all stitched in post process. Really really hard to do given all of the above considerations (and the stitch itself is also super complex given built-in logic and flexibility of the software, most often perspective is not faithfully reproduced always leaning towards producing a wide angle view whether desired or not). When it works it really is a beautiful thing, but more often that not I return from the field with a ton of photos that have failed to achieve the objective.
Have a think about that and give it another go if that is something you want bad enough. Happy to talk.
A bit of a ramble but ... you are building a 3D cube of focus. Or vertical standing oblong of focus ... aaaargh difficult ... through your image.
It's Cladonia fimbriata.
or easier: trumpet cup lichen
Does your camera have a focus-bracketing feature? (Assuming the lens has auto-focus and is not fully manual focus only).
That is really useful when doing this kind of focus stacking.
When shooting with my manual focus lens however I will just very slow move the focus ring while shooting, and often I will take multiple series of shots which improves my chances of getting it right even when I was hand-holding the camera!
When I can shoot with my manual focus macro lens in continuous light, one of the tricks I use myself is burst-shooting while either slightly moving the camera forward, or manually moving the focus ring.
Hey Tim! I don't think it does, but I tend to prefer a manual approach to these things (when I do it right, anyway!). The burst mode option is great when doing hand held macro -- I've had good success with that before.
They are lichen
To be fair photoshop isn't great at stacking and if you have lots of images in your stack it just crashes all together. I focus stack a lot, my workflow is to use my Nikon D850 to " focus shift " the lens ( the D850 can move the focus of the lens incrementally ). I might take 250+ images in some situations, no way photoshop could cope with that. I pulled the plug and purchased Zerene stacker and have never looked back. For the best stacking results you need a purpose built stacking software.🙂
They're clearly golf tees
I always wondered how they grew!
I don't have even one good fotostacking image))) the reason is subject slightly changed position(bug) or the final product is not a product at all)
all too easy to do.
I'm always in awe of the super macro gurus with their 120 layer stacks
You and me both!