The Art of Focus Stacking - Matrix Software

A two-Stack Example
Far Shot Near Shot
Here is a photo of a little spring diorama of some
Michigan ferns emerging. Notice how the ferns in the
front are in focus on the left but those in the back are
not. In the right photo the ferns in the rear are in focus
but those in front are not. Our eye is drawn to the area
in the photo where everything is in focus. Trying to
get the whole scene into focus through manipulating
the DOF would be difficult if only because the woods
where these ferns grow is quite dark.
Now let’s look at a stacked photograph that is a blending
of four different photos, each focused on different
areas of the scene. As you can see, at least the main
subject (the various ferns) are in focus. But notice the
ferns midway between the front and back ferns are
somewhat out of focus. In stacked focus, unless you
shoot hundreds of photos, not everything will be in
focus, but you can choose what is and what is not in
focus. Here the two groups of ferns (front and back)
are in focus, which makes for a nice effect.
As you look at this photo, see how appealing it is to
have things in focus and to be able to look around the
scene as opposed to being denied that freedom by
having some areas of the photo out of focus.
I point this out because I believe that focus stacking
or focus bracketing will (in time) become at least as
important to us as HDR or exposure bracketing have
up to this point.
Camera makers may eventually even include focus
bracketing as a feature where, perhaps, we focus on
the front and back areas of any scene or object and
the camera produces a series of bracketed photos
with the focus at different layers between the two
points we set. We would tell the camera how many
layers or photos we want. This could be very useful
because one of the problems of focus stacking is
taking the photos fast enough to capture the images
before changes in lighting, etc. set in. This would be a
poor man’s focus stacking because in reality many of
the best macro lenses do not autofocus, and so on.
So far the results I am getting are pleasing to me. The
example used here gives you some idea of what a
stacked photo can look like. In fact, farther on we will
look at a bunch of stacked photos so that you can get
an idea of what they look like and what subjects lend
themselves to focus stacking.
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