How's this for DOF

Lord Vetinari

Another example of focus stacking with combinez5. Pics taken of a 4 foot length of flower border with my 105mm EX macro lens. I took 4 pics from the same point of view just altering the focus further down the border for each shot. You then just load the 4 pics into the stacking software and tell it to stack- it does the rest automatically. So although it was originally designed for stacking macro pictures (see http://www.digitalgrin.com/showpost.php?p=156830&postcount=30 for an example), it can be used in other situatons. Although I hand held these shots it does work better if a tripod is used.

First pic





Last Pic





Focus stacked pic

Andy

nice. brian, a little lesson in focus stacking, or if you've already done it, a link to prior post? thanks man appreciate your work here very much!

Lord Vetinari

andy wrote:

nice. brian, a little lesson in focus stacking, or if you've already done it, a link to prior post? thanks man appreciate your work here very much!

Thanks Andy
I've put a bit more detail in the original post.

windoze

what i dont understand is this.... dont yuo have to take the same "exact" picture each time and if thats true... i say its impossible. how can u take a picture change the settings and be sure to get exactly the same pic if its hand held... i mean if your a surgeon you might be able to but .....arrgh, now that im thinking about it , it probably is possible........ i want to try it so tomorrow i will give it a go..

thanx for the lesson,

troy

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Thanks Andy
I've put a bit more detail in the original post.

Lord Vetinari

Hi Troy.

No the picture does not have to be exactly the same each time, in fact it can't be because the framing and perspective will change a bit with refocusing even if it is on a tripod. I tend to start with the nearest part of the subject(s) and carry on from there but trying to make sure that the nearest part although oof is still in the frame. It does not always work- witness my picasso spider below.
Of course it will not work if part of the subject(s) moves significantly during the shoot.
The software is pretty clever, it does what it can to match the colours, exposure and also resizes and shifts the individual pics to try and get a decent match. If you look at the other example under macro tips which is just a 2 pic stack, you can see the framing is way off. When this happens you do get "stacking errors" around the outside of the pic which can be cropped.
Anyway hope you try it, it's quite amazing what it can do.

Picasso spider- a stack that did not work but still rather interesting!


Another recent example of a stack of 3 pics that did work, although this did have slight haloing on the top right petals that I PS'd out.


Brian V.