black darter

[Jeremy Roussak]

18-shot focus stack.

Jeremy

[Chris Kern]

18-shot focus stack.

Very impressive.  Outdoors?  How did you do it without mismatched frames?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

What technique?

[Jeremy Roussak]

Outdoors, yes, a small nature reserve a half hour's drive from my home. I was there just after dawn, when it was chilly and the insects were very lethargic. Several stacks were ruined by movement but on the whole the beasts cooperated pretty well.

My A7Riv doesn't do automatic focus stacking (I think the A7Rv does, as do various Canon, Olympus and Nikon models), so I just use the zebras to find front and back focus, then shoot with minimal manual adjustments between frames, covering a little closer and a little further away. I did the blending and some manual corrections in Helicon Focus, which is impressive, then a little further editing in Lightroom.

Jeremy

[PeterAit]

Outdoors, yes, a small nature reserve a half hour's drive from my home. I was there just after dawn, when it was chilly and the insects were very lethargic. Several stacks were ruined by movement but on the whole the beasts cooperated pretty well.

My A7Riv doesn't do automatic focus stacking (I think the A7Rv does, as do various Canon, Olympus and Nikon models), so I just use the zebras to find front and back focus, then shoot with minimal manual adjustments between frames, covering a little closer and a little further away. I did the blending and some manual corrections in Helicon Focus, which is impressive, then a little further editing in Lightroom.

Jeremy

Impressive! FWIW the A7R5 does not do focus stacking. I have had some success with handheld stacking by using burst mode (10 frames / sec) and physically moving the camera as I shoot.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Impressive! FWIW the A7R5 does not do focus stacking. I have had some success with handheld stacking by using burst mode (10 frames / sec) and physically moving the camera as I shoot.

Peter, I meant to write "focus bracketing", which I believe the A7R5 does have (see here, for example). I'll wait for the A7R6, whenever it might appear, as I don't think the difference between the 4 and the 5 is sufficient to warrant the expense of an update.

I've had some success using a method similar to yours, but slowly turning the focussing ring while in burst mode. Both methods require enough light for short exposures, or very rapidly-recharging flashguns.

Here are another couple, taken on the same morning.

Jeremy

[francois]

I'm late but yes, it's a superb shot.
Well done.

[UnfamiliarLight]

18-shot focus stack.

Jeremy

Oh wow that is nice. Focus stacked too - cool. There might be more negative space above and to the right but that might also be knit picky too.