If you’re also familiar with blending multiple exposures for better dynamic range, this will be a piece of cake.
HELICON FOCUS WHICH METHOD HOW TO
You’re already half way there if you know how to change the focus of your camera. The good news is that it’s not nearly as difficult as you might fear. There are only a few scenarios when focus stacking is beneficial (or essential) for the final image:Īll of this sounds fine and dandy but how does it actually work? What do you need to do in order to get razor sharp images? In fact, it’s most likely not needed for the majority of your images. While focus stacking is an incredibly powerful technique that you need to learn, it’s not always necessary. The differences might not be significant if you’re only viewing your images on a smartphone or small device but as soon as you start printing, the difference becomes alarmingly visible, especially when printing large. Therefore, many tend to capture multiple images and blend them together for one ultra-sharp image. This is common when using open apertures such as f2.8 or f5.6. Getting the entire flower sharp in one shot is near impossible try zooming in on the flower and you’ll quickly see that there are many parts slightly out of focus.
Macro photography is another example of when focus stacking is an essential technique to understand. The final is sharp all the way from the first flower to background mountain. To overcome that issue, I needed to capture a total of 4 images with different focus points throughout the frame. Notice that the further away from the first flower, the more out of focus the image is This is due to the flower only being a few centimeters away from the lens. When I focused on the first with an aperture of f/10, the next flowers were already out of focus. When there’s a big distance between the immediate foreground and distant background, only parts of the image will be sharp even at a narrow aperture. The truth is that learning a slightly more advanced technique such as focus stacking has a lot of advantages, making it well-worth to spend the little extra time in-field and in post-processing.Īs already mentioned, it’s nearly impossible to get images front-to-back sharp when using an ultra-wide-angle lens and a foreground subject only a few centimeters/inches away. Many photographers tend to avoid learning intermediate or advanced techniques because they don’t want to put in the extra effort or feel like their images are ‘good enough’. I know it sounds confusing at first but after you’ve gone through the step-by-step process and tried it for yourself, you’ll see that it’s not as hard as it sounds. Only the sharpest areas from each image are used in this blend, which results in the image having a sharp foreground, middle ground and background. These images are then imported into a photo-editor and blended/merged together. one image that focuses on the foreground and another that focuses on the background. We’ll come back to the exact step-by-step guide to focus stacking in a bit but the main idea of the technique is to capture two or more images with different focal points i.e.
While there are photographers who use it for portrait and wildlife photography too, it’s less common (and a lot more difficult) to use when photographing moving subjects.
HELICON FOCUS WHICH METHOD SOFTWARE
The technique requires the use of both a camera and a post-processing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Helicon Focus.įocus stacking is used within many genres of photography but it’s perhaps most commonly used in landscape and macro photography. Focus Stacking was essential to get a sharp image due to the wide-angle lens and distance between immidiate foreground and background. Simply put, focus stacking is an intermediate technique that makes it possible to create image that are sharp from the very front and all the way to the back, no matter the distance between the closest foreground and background. Let’s take a closer look at what focus stacking for sharper images is and how you can quickly learn and implement this technique in your own workflow. It’s used by photographers of all levels and, with a little basic understanding of photography and post-processing, it’s not as difficult as one may think. Focus stacking is a go-to technique for landscape photographers to achieve images that are razor-sharp from front to back.
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