So I’m finally trying out focus stacking using Affinity Photo. Has the potential to radically improve a lot of the macro shots. You get an enormous depth of focus but there are facets I still have to figure out.
Orion's Cold Fire
All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Wow! Major DOF improvement. I’ve been aware of focus stacking for a while but never tried it. Saw a demo on it once. You had to control the camera tethered to a computer but that was 7-8 years ago. I’ll bet there have been major advances since then.
There have been major advances but unfortunately they happened at Panasonic and Olympus. They have an in camera focus stacking program. With Sony you do have to use the Sony tethering program. Also since Sony doesn’t have the focus stacking program on he tethering program I use an open source hack to progress the lens focusing travel.
Just read up on it and find that I can do that in Photoshop, which I’ve been using for quite a while. I also find that you need to manually adjust your camera focus points between shots, hopefully without moving the camera too much. Have you ever shot HDR? That’s a type of image stacking except the exposure value is the variable that is changed, usually by keeping aperture constant and varying shutter speed. Most cameras now have HDR taking software built in, set it up, push the shutter button and the camera will quickly snap off 3 or 5… Read more »
I think the Panasonic system, resident in the camera, is close to what would make it convenient in the field.