Anyone done Focus stacking for macro?

[gummybun]

Must be harder than I am thinking and doing it in any sort of current would be next to impossible.

I would love to see some trials of this underwater. I use Sony but I have read some Oly and Panasonic units are doing the stacking in camera. Would that not make it a whole lot easier - starting with some Nudi's in shallows. I read it was introduced in a firmware update - !!! - so it is as much scripting/programming as hardware (?). If it is do-able it looks really exciting to me.

 

[PatW]

Focus stacking is interesting. But you need a motionless subject and a motionless camera. Having a motionless camera pretty much means using a tripod which is not easy to do underwater. Also, on land, you really don't have problems with air moving your camera unless it is windy or you are photographing insects on flowers. Under water, surge pretty much kills any notion of focus stacking. I guess you can give it a try and let us know how it turns out.

 

[bvanant]

I think one big issue is strobe firing. I will shoot some stuff in the studio and see about lighting.
Bill

 

[gummybun]

Both of these points are true, but to a point (I think). If we are looking at the new breeds of cameras that di in camera focus stacking, and speed the speeds of some of these are staggering so maybe the effect of camera/subject movement may be minimized - (maybe). And start with a slow mover. I really have no idea of how the in-camera functions work in practice.

As for lighting I would be assuming the subject is well above 30' - or using an array of video lights.

 

[Ardy]

I think one big issue is strobe firing. I will shoot some stuff in the studio and see about lighting.
Bill

Hi Bill did you have a chance to test this in studio? I am out of diving till later this year (new hip!) but very interested in this.

 

[Ricardo V.]

This sounds really interesting. I'm not familiar with this. Would like to see a few finished high resolution images captured with this technique or method.

I wonder how an image with focus throughout... essentially with no bokeh, would appeal to viewers. It may look more like a compact camera image, rather than one taken with an SLR, or high resolution mirroless camera.

Some truly great underwater photographers that I've been fortunate enough to meet and from whom I've been trying to always learn from, routinely suggest to: 1. Get close. 2. Shoot up. 3. Zoom with your fins. They also recommend focusing on the eyes, if the subject(s) have them, as it is the way to pull-in the interest of the viewer.

 

[Ardy]

HI Riccardo - here is an image done with focus stacking using 150,000 !!!!!! images. Think is a way too much but here is the image anyway. ‘Slow Life’ – a Gorgeous Underwater Macro Time-Lapse Created from 150,000 RAW Images

BTW that is always good advice that is often forgotten..

Just found another article on doing stacking in Photoshop with 2 frog fish. Focus stack in Photoshop - Tutorial | uw-pix.com

 

[Ricardo V.]

Ardy,
Thanks for the hyperlinks and the articles. The video is impressive and the merged depths of fields using Photoshop is very interesting too. I'll have to give focus stack a try and will use 2 images at first, like the article explains.
Thank you for sharing.

 

[bvanant]

I did some work in the studio with my EM-1. Not very easy to tell a shot at f22 with a focus stacked version shot a f8.
Still working on it for my UW stage.
Bill

 

[Furnari]

I think one big issue is strobe firing

I believe you can program in a delay between shots in order to give the strobes time to recharge.