Thanks Rob for this excellent tutorial. I never really understood focus bracketing until I watched this. Thanks for clarifying yet another of the many mysteries of Olympus photography.
Rob, Thanks for doing a great job explaining and illustrating focus stacking. I have never done it but now I am motivated to give it a try. Your tips with the finger point and the flat hand are excellent for saving time and eliminating frustration by bracketing each set of stacked photos.
Another outstanding video ! You are my #1 source for learning how to get the most out of my Olympus camera. Always easy to follow and understand. Thank you.
Was very helpfull for me , the "turning point" was the explanation to go backl in the menue (focus stacking) and confirm step by step up to bracketing. Good speech and English to understand
I just tried out the focus bracketing function on my Oly EM-5 mark II and it worked as smoothly as you described it. Also the software you recommend is very easy to use. Thanks you for the tutorial!
Hi Rob you make my day..finally I undestood the nuts and bolts of this great feature. Thanks for your time and cristal clear explanation.. Big thumbs up
Another interesting (at least to me) finding that I haven't seen discussed. I tested 2 Panasonic prime lenses and found that the 14 mm f2.5 lens worked normally, but the 20mm f1.7 incremented its focusing from the back to the front rather than from the front to the back. I had to focus on the back of the ruler and the camera moved the focus progressively closer to the itself during focus bracketing. Picolay processed the images normally even though they were in reverse order.
Thanks again Rob. I just tried some focus stacking on my EM10 MkII, as per your guidelines. The camera bit was fine but I had problems using Lightroom and Photoshop for the processing - too slow and complicated and it never really worked for me, despite the fact that I followed instructional videos on the subject. However, I downloaded Picolay as you suggested and it worked beautifully and it was dead simple. As you comment, though, it's a good idea to ask it to produce a few finished stacked photos, as some will have artefacts. I got it to do four and one was pretty spot on, no artefacts.
I've just started experimenting on the em10 mkii with focus bracketing that seems to work in just the same way as the Pen F you demonstrated here. Surprised upon stacking with PS I see my tests have odd background blotches/artifact occasionally that I'm not happy with. Will try that free dedicated stacking software that I didn't know about before I try the other paid-for stacking software. The multiple outputs is a handy feature. Very useful video series. Glad I subscribed 👍🏻
Thank you for your feedback. Love my em10 mkii, use it. for all my work, and the pen-f for fun :). You can tweak the picolay to no end, and it has worked well for me. Still, moving objects are a problem, such as wind blowing on the flowers.
Rob, I know that this is an old video but I thought that viewers might get value from my recent experience with focus bracketing/stacking. I tried it with my EM10 MkII using the kit lens and the Olympus Workspace software to stack the images. The Workspace software manual says it can do that using Tools/Composite/Focus Stacking. Pictures looked good with the focus point shifting backwards through the progression of images. However, stacking failed with an error message saying that one must have a lens compatible with focus stacking. Olympus tech support first told me that the EM10 MkII was not capable of focus bracketing. I pointed him to the website saying it was capable. He then told me that my kit lens was not capable of taking focus bracketed images that were able to be focus stacked. He pointed me to the list of Pro lenses needed for in-camera focus stacking. I gave up with him and Workspace and installed the Picolay software you recommended. Worked like a charm. So even though the Olympus Workspace software claims to be capable of Focus Stacking images taken with Focus Bracketing, it is not (at least not without lenses beyond my price point). Thanks for all your help.
Thanks for the excellent video. The tip with the focus point at the beginning and the hand at the end is great. I could have actually figured it out myself. But I haven't. I will do ist now.
Excellent guide. I just need to work out how number of shots & differential make up the depth of focus stack. Good tip about finger & hand to mark the beginning & end of the stack too.
Thanks for the explanation, it helps! Olympus did the worst implementation of this feature I can think of - instead of giving it the endpoints (nearest and farthest) and let it calculate the necessary steps, we have to experiment to get even the distance range ourself … but better than nothing … What are you using for screen recording? (Just switching from macOS to Windows 10 and therefor can no longer just use Quicktime to do it.)
Tried my first practice attempt using the "Focus Bracketing" feature on my E-M10ii. I was disappointed to learn it doesn't work on adapted manual lenses. Only on the new Oly lenses. I guess I should've read the comment section first. Tried it using the Oly 45mm lens and worked as advertised. Picolay software did its job as well. Oh well, live & learn. Still a great video !
Very well explained and nice tip of the beginning and end point, never thought about it. Also another downside of stacking is it's only supports Oly Pro and Macro lenses.
I've used focus stacking on the kit Oly14-42 lens, and my Panasonic 25mm f/1.7, so it seems it works with any native micro four thirds lens. Thanks for the kind words and your feedback!
I think that all macro lenses suffer from severe focus breathing, which actually renders focus stacking redundant. I do wish that in the near future... Olympus will consider a firmware update with the selection of start and end point(s) and let the camera choose the number of shots at a certain aperture value. Excellent tutorial by the way. Thank you very much for your time and effort.
A really good video this, nice and steady, clear instructions at a pace that allows for understanding and absorbing each point. I liked this, thankyou.
One nice feature of Nikon cameras is they allow you to save your stack of images to a distinct folder. No need to mark the beginning or endpoint. That would be a pretty easy firmware upgrade I think.
Great video Rob, I've watched it three times so far. Very helpful. I don't have a modern macro or other lens appropriate so I tried doing this with my old adapted manual lenses and I took multiple shots moving the focus slightly manually. I used your point and stop technique and it was easy to find the photos on my computer when I got home. The Picolay software worked great. I will be referring back to this video many times as I experiment with focus bracketing, hopefully with an electronic lens. You are an excellent instructor and I like your humility and encouraging attitude. Question: Does an Adobe product (Lightroom or Photoshop) do a better job than Picolay? It is a little hard for me to tell because I'm using my old Tamron 90. From the photo stacked images I've seen online, I'm guessing maybe Adobe is a bit better? Curious if you have tried and compared. Thanks!
Another excellent video Rob. I know it's a few years old but still very relevant. It's was thanks to your videos (plus Jimmy's & Robin's) that I got back into photography and M43 (lockdown life saver!) and have recently bought the Pen-elp9. I love the camera but after just a few months I now want an EM5 Mkiii too! As for the focus bracketing - wouldn't it be a great idea if the camera automatically added say a pure green photo at the start of the image sequence and a red one at the end? I know it's unlikely to happen now with the sad Olympus news, but just thought that would have been a neat future option! Anyway, keep up the excellent videos and tutorials, they are very much appreciated.
Be nice if I could combine high Rez mode and focus stacking. Today I was photographing the states Constitution and 80MP is not enough as was the deep depth of field at f16. Maybe in the Wow camera.
Hi Rob, Great tutorial. I keep referring to your older tutorials, they help out a lot. I noticed in one of your demo photos in exposure bracketing tutorial that you had a sun burst (sun rays) in one of the photos. How did you get that. Is the video from you on this? Thanks.
Thanks. Not sure about the sunburst, but typically you stop the lens down to f/16 to f/22 to get sunburst effect. Helps if something is partially blocking the sun such as a building or tree. Some lenses render starburst better than others.
Thanks a lot Rob I will try the stacking software you use. Up to now I've never achieved as good results as the stacking out of camera using lightroom 6, olympus sw or On1 photo raw. Why is olympus not providing a stacked raw picture 😞
Hi Rob, thanks for this video. I am doing focus bracketing for my landscape photos and stack it in Photoshop. Another technique for minimizing the noise in low light landscape photography is exposure blending with Photoshop. My question, is it possible to combine both techniqes? E.g. shooting 50 images with focus stacking and process it in Photoshop. When stacking the image in PS will the noise automatically be minimized? Thanks for your opinion.
I don't think that can be done in-camera. What you could do is use an external intervalometer to take 50 shots with bracketing on. So you'll have 50 sets of bracketed shots.
Hi Rob, thanks for all the great and informative videos - you make all this information easier to understand. I have a question about this video on focus bracketing. How does the camera know where to stop ? You used the ruler as your subject and you chose the start point and you also set it for 20 individual shots. Same for the mushroom. You chose the initial focus point but you did not set the end point for the camera to stop in either example. How do you/how does the camera know where to stop the 20th photo (or however many you set it for)? Follow that? Thank you! Ken Hassman
There are a lot of variables the camera calculates. We can only choose the first point of focus. From there, I make a guess as to what can be done based on the settings available. Shooting at a short distance and only looking to go a little farther from that there is easy work. As the starting distance and range of focus increases, its purely guesswork and only trial and error. Throw in using different lenses with different focal lengths and it gets way over my head. Sometimes you only need 20 steps in short increments, sometimes 50 steps in large increments. Sometimes you might pick a starting point, set 50 steps, but then the camera only takes 10 pictures because there are only 10 steps left of focus range from the starting point to infinity. I'm so sorry, but I don't do this kind of photography enough to guide you any further but hopefully gave you a starting point!
Hi Rob...have you ever used an Olympus E-20..it is, or was a 5mp camera from the early 2000's..I thought of it when watching another fine video of yours...
Hi I am enjoying watching videos and finding it very helpful with my new E-M1 mark 11,have just made the switch from Nick D 600 I've been with Nick on for a long time, I am interested The Focus stacking have been following the video but when it comes to choosing how many pictures it won't highlight it for me to select
I believe the in camera focus stacking is fixed to 8 frames. You can select the number of frames in focus bracketing, then you have to stack them in software. Thank you for your question!
Rob, great video, as usual,can I ask a question pksase? When you chose20 shots was that by trial a derror or an you pre choose the dustqnce? Cheers from the UK.
Great informative video, but doesn't Olympus cameras that include this firmware (like the Em1- Mk2 for example) , stack all the bracketed images together in the camera giving you one fully in focus JPeg image without the need for any post processing PC software ( unless you want a RAW file of course) ?
@@RobTrek Hi Rob, many thanks for getting back to me...I have done some research and there is very good news for macro photographers , both the Olympus macro lens, the 30m and 60m (though not 'Pro' ) are actually compatible with the In Camera Stacking firmware , if anyone, like me, is interested in Macro photography I think that is brilliant, very often you find not all the planets line up, so to speak..😊
Thanks for the feedback! You are not alone on the music being too loud. I'm working on audio. I found the speakers on my laptop plays the music much softer than voice. Looking into a decent set of monitor headphones and studying other videos to better balance music and voice. In my last tutorial, I left the music out altogether.
Olympus just released new firmware 4.0 bringing the focus stacking function EM5 II. Could you make a video to introduce how it works on EM5 II? Thanks a lot
Its the same as the em1-ii. with the same issues. Would be a lot easier if it was a start-end rather than a start -increment but its better then not having it at all ( e.g. my nikons!) . works well in the studio or other fixed and repeatable but if traveling its a pain to get the increment right. . Rob .. great video and presentation
Great videos you show us. In this video I wunder that you show us the bracketing and you say ...let us go to the computer (to create the photo out of the 20 single files) but you start a new photo session outside. We can not see the final photo of the ruler. Best regards Gerd from Germany
Thank you for your quick response. I just check out which Olympus camera I should buy. I use a Nikon D300 and a olympus Pen PL7. The PL7 is fine, but I miss a viewfinder and the focus blacking feature. My Olympus favourites are the omd m5 m2 and the Pen F. What is your proposal. Olympus Germany offers now 200 Euro cashback for the m5. Your comment is highly appreciated.
The em5 has a better viewfinder and microphone jack. The PenF more features for jpeg, color modes, monochrome modes, etc. If you like to adapt lenses, then the penf has lens data feature that is very helpful. Other than that, the differences are very small. You may want to consider the em10-ii, it costs about half and uses the same battery as your pl7.
Great video! I'm just beginning to use this feature. Can anyone tell me whether the focus only moves from front to back (down to up, on the camera screen), or also left-to-right (or right-to-left)? I am into nature photography so rarely can put items on a table top. Often, I'm on the side of a log with items running left-right, and with irregular objects that have some parts near and some parts far. (EM10--mkII)
Thanks. You have to think in three dimensions. The camera will move the focus point front to back. Think of a 2 dimensional flat plane that is parallel to the plane of your sensor that moves in steps along the one dimension (depth). Everything that plane crosses at each step will be in focus - in all directions on two dimensions (height and width).
Hi, Thanks for that video. I m asking me two questions : The first : does the focus braketing mean that we necessarily shoot on a tripod ? The second : does this function is usable on evry mirco 4/3 lens (i mean with automatic focusing of course) ...for example does that function is usable with panasonic lens on a em1 Mk3 Olympus body ?? Thanks a lot. Oliver (i'm sorry my english is certainly not at the best cause i'm french !)
You should use a tripod. You can try without it but it would be difficult. Focus bracketing should work with most lenses from both Olympus and Panasonic. I'm not sure which ones don't work if any.
OK, it looked better when you went 1:1. Also, some other objects like the camera LCD looked soft as well. Also, some other photographers' sample images also looked soft. It must be the resolution of the video that ends up being published. I have also seen other videos of different subject matter, being tack sharp. I have a hi res screen set to the max resolution.
It's possible it wasn't in focus. I rarely use the feature myself but I imagine with some practice of the various settings would yield excellent results.
I'm sorry, but focus bracketing is not a feature built into the Pen E-PL line. You will have to manually focus each shot, then you can use the software I mentioned in the video. Thank you for your question!
What is the correllation between the camera setting and the total distance covered by the Bracketing? I guess I can foresee a lot of frustration here until Olympus lets you choose a start point and an end point, then automatically takes the correct number of shots based on the lens aperture.
That would be a cool feature. It would have to take into account focal length, distance and angle of inception of the subject from the camera as well. They could probably do it for specific lenses in their lineup as I'm sure the optical properties of the lens would affect the focusing steps at different distances. It would have to do a dry run first, like when contrast detect overshoots then steps back. Or maybe I'm over thinking it. Great question!
Hello Rob, i must have done something wrong: Trying to use focus bracketing, in shows on my super control panel only the sign for silent picture series H. Clicking on it nothing happens and I just cannot chance it and also I cannot do any focus bracketing. Turning focus bracketing off and choosing shutter bracketing everything works fine again. I don't know what to do anymore. Would be very grateful for help.
Which camera do you have exactly? I recommend doing a full reset of the camera first then follow the instructions here very carefully. Don't try to setup any custom modes yet. Watch my video on how to setup mysets once you get the bracketing working.
While applying the bracketing, you only selected first focusing point. What about the last focusing point? Not sure what that focus differential scale meter is. What is 1 to 10 indicates? Anything like in cm, mm, inch? I find this technique very useful and thinking to use it for even landscape.
This is a great question! The scale is not based on distance. It is simply how much it will move the focus point for each step in bracketing. The distance between each focus point is relative to the angle of the focal plane. Think of 1 on the scale as turning the focus ring in very small steps, and 10 as turning the focus ring in larger steps. It's difficult to explain and I may have to do a video on this specific concept. Thanks for your question!
Rob Trek Thank you very much for your instant reply. The tutorial is very well explained by you. I have already tried this technique for some smaller objects using panasonic 42.5 f1.7 lens. The technique works great but some artifects are noticed when stacked using picolay. I am not sure the issue was with lens focus breathing or actual stacking process. It can be double checked using photoshop. Anyway I will try using the same technique for broader scale to check the effect and usability. Thanks once again...
Too bad you can't use the bracketing feature with Olympus 4/3 lenses. I have a nice 7-14mm f/4 Zuiko that I would like to stack images. Of course, I still can by manually taking the shots. Not ideal, but doable.
Hi agaib, maybe I am blind but I have a problem. I follow your suggestions on my Pen-F to make focus braketing. I have set 20 photos with number 5 for distance lenght. I save the settings and in the menu I see indeed that BKT is active. I have latest Oly fimware 3.1 for my Pen-F and I use a Zuiko 12-40 ED F/2,8 Pro. When I fire the images I get only couple of images taken automatically. How come??? Should the camera take 20 images automatically and change focus automatically?
Most likely you are focusing on a distant subject. When the lens is already focused near infinity, there aren't many "steps" left. Try a focus point closer to the camera.
Do you think focus bracketing and focus stacking is something really worth having and taking advantage of, or I should be able to take good enough macro photos with a MF vintage macro lens like the Olympus OM 50mm f3.5?
You can manually bracket with the OM. However, if you do a lot of macro, the bracketing is handy but you'd have to buy a focus bracketing compatible lens. So a substantial investment.
Which common (budget) lenses work with Focus BKT on an M10 Mark II? (thinking of 25mm 1.8; 45mm 1.8; 40-150 R, 30mm 3.5 macro?) (Olympus says: PRO lenses + 60mm 2.8 macro, but the 14-42 appears to work for Nun Coelho)
its okay Rob, no rush.. its says "there was a problem while reading the content of the file "install_PICOLAY_180407.exe". data is corrupted.. i clicked continue anyway, but nothing happen
Which camera do you have exactly? I recommend doing a full reset of the camera first then follow the instructions here very carefully. Don't try to setup any custom modes yet. Watch my video on how to setup mysets once you get the bracketing working.
@@RobTrek The Olympus OM-D E-M 10 Mark ii. I followed before your video "bracketing made easy" and ist works perfectly. It everything still does as soon as I torn off Focus Bracketing, which I up to now nearly never used. So I tried to set the Focus Bracketing on the silent custom place for having both, the shutter and the focus bracketing. That's where I must have made the mistake. I endet up showing me the normal silent place without being able to click it on and change anything whenever I choose Focus Bracketing. And that does not work either.
Hi Rob, another interestng and useful video. There´s something I´d like to ask you. Have you upgraded your PEN-F to firmware ver. 2? I am experiencing this bug which turns off the camera (just like that) and you can turn it on only put pulling the battery off and on. I hope u r not having the same problem, but if you have, could you share your experience with us? Guys on DPreview have discussed about this: www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4159630
I updated to 2.0 on May 9th. Have not had that problem since updating. However, I did have that problem back in October, so sent it in. I think I was on firmware version 1.1. They replaced the eye viewfinder (not really clear on the work order). I have taken about 15,000 pictures since that fix and roughly 3000 pictures since the update. I shoot usually with the screen facing out, but sometimes with the screen closed facing in.
How to Pronounce ISO Film speed was rated by using the ASA number, American Standards Association (now named ANSI). Film speed use to be referred to by the acronym A.S.A.; It is now referred to by the ISO rating. ISO is pronounced (eye-so) not I.S.O, it is not an acronym. ISO is the name of a company. Is this mispronunciation now a permeant mistake that will never be corrected? “Because 'International Organization for Standardization' would have different acronyms in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation), our founders decided to give it the short form ISO. ISO is derived from the Greek isos, meaning equal.” ISO is pronounced “eye-so” not I.S.O. it is not an acronym. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on 23 February 1947, the organization promotes worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial standards. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and as of March 2017 works in 162 countries. It was one of the first organizations granted general consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
It's a hard job to compile and present a video that is smooth and perfect. I think that you have done a really good job on this. Ok, so yes you did do a few ums and ers but there is no need to be rude about it like Mr Richards here, and your courteous reply that accepts your slight shortcomings answers him perfectly. Well done, and thanks for a really good video that you have taken the time to create which has helped me out for free!
@@RobTrek Well, it might be a case of 'YMMV' but it worked for me. It's not perfect by any means. It's nowhere near as neat as Picolay because it has so many other features but it will process .ORF files. I couldn't get Picolay to do that.
![Twenty One Pilots - The Line (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XCz7WUotXs8/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks Rob for this excellent tutorial. I never really understood focus bracketing until I watched this. Thanks for clarifying yet another of the many mysteries of Olympus photography.
Happy to help!
Rob, Thanks for doing a great job explaining and illustrating focus stacking. I have never done it but now I am motivated to give it a try. Your tips with the finger point and the flat hand are excellent for saving time and eliminating frustration by bracketing each set of stacked photos.
Thanks for the kind feedback. Bracketing can be a pain when you take hundreds of shots, so I thought that would make it easier.
Another outstanding video ! You are my #1 source for learning how to get the most out of my Olympus camera. Always easy to follow and understand. Thank you.
Thank you!
Was very helpfull for me , the "turning point" was the explanation to go backl in the menue (focus stacking) and confirm step by step up to bracketing. Good speech and English to understand
Thank you.
t hanks so much Rob, you have made this so simple and straight forward. Olympus should pay you for your tutorials.
Thanks! I doubt Olympus knows I exist.
Olympus should get you into the Visionary program right now: you are the n1 channel for learning the true potential of the Olympus system.
Thank you for the informations, and the slowly, explict notation without any modern
hysteric way of speaking.
Greetings from Germany. ;)
Thank you! Sorry I missed your comment.
I just tried out the focus bracketing function on my Oly EM-5 mark II and it worked as smoothly as you described it. Also the software you recommend is very easy to use. Thanks you for the tutorial!
Thank you!
Hi Rob you make my day..finally I undestood the nuts and bolts of this great feature.
Thanks for your time and cristal clear explanation..
Big thumbs up
Thanks for watching! I appreciate the kind words. -Rob
You are a very good teacher! Thank you!!
Thank you! 😃
This is the first time in my life i understand what's bracketing.. thanks..
Awesome! I'm so glad I could help. Thanks for watching. :)
i know it's kind of off topic but does anybody know a good site to watch new movies online?
Another interesting (at least to me) finding that I haven't seen discussed. I tested 2 Panasonic prime lenses and found that the 14 mm f2.5 lens worked normally, but the 20mm f1.7 incremented its focusing from the back to the front rather than from the front to the back. I had to focus on the back of the ruler and the camera moved the focus progressively closer to the itself during focus bracketing. Picolay processed the images normally even though they were in reverse order.
Thanks for sharing. That is interesting.
My my my… this is too much fun! I want to try to sharpen my photos and this is just another tool. Rob you are wonderful, thank you.
Thanks!
Thanks again Rob. I just tried some focus stacking on my EM10 MkII, as per your guidelines. The camera bit was fine but I had problems using Lightroom and Photoshop for the processing - too slow and complicated and it never really worked for me, despite the fact that I followed instructional videos on the subject. However, I downloaded Picolay as you suggested and it worked beautifully and it was dead simple. As you comment, though, it's a good idea to ask it to produce a few finished stacked photos, as some will have artefacts. I got it to do four and one was pretty spot on, no artefacts.
Awesome! Glad to know this video is still relevant and got you the results you were looking for. Thanks.
I've just started experimenting on the em10 mkii with focus bracketing that seems to work in just the same way as the Pen F you demonstrated here. Surprised upon stacking with PS I see my tests have odd background blotches/artifact occasionally that I'm not happy with. Will try that free dedicated stacking software that I didn't know about before I try the other paid-for stacking software. The multiple outputs is a handy feature. Very useful video series. Glad I subscribed 👍🏻
Thank you for your feedback. Love my em10 mkii, use it. for all my work, and the pen-f for fun :). You can tweak the picolay to no end, and it has worked well for me. Still, moving objects are a problem, such as wind blowing on the flowers.
Rob, I know that this is an old video but I thought that viewers might get value from my recent experience with focus bracketing/stacking. I tried it with my EM10 MkII using the kit lens and the Olympus Workspace software to stack the images. The Workspace software manual says it can do that using Tools/Composite/Focus Stacking. Pictures looked good with the focus point shifting backwards through the progression of images. However, stacking failed with an error message saying that one must have a lens compatible with focus stacking. Olympus tech support first told me that the EM10 MkII was not capable of focus bracketing. I pointed him to the website saying it was capable. He then told me that my kit lens was not capable of taking focus bracketed images that were able to be focus stacked. He pointed me to the list of Pro lenses needed for in-camera focus stacking. I gave up with him and Workspace and installed the Picolay software you recommended. Worked like a charm. So even though the Olympus Workspace software claims to be capable of Focus Stacking images taken with Focus Bracketing, it is not (at least not without lenses beyond my price point). Thanks for all your help.
You are correct. Workspace has the same limitations as the camera/lens combo. Not sure why that is, but it is. Thanks for sharing. -Rob
Thanks for the excellent video. The tip with the focus point at the beginning and the hand at the end is great. I could have actually figured it out myself. But I haven't. I will do ist now.
Glad it was helpful!
Got my new Em5 Mark II, thanks for the great tips on how to customize the menu
Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate you taking the time to write. -Rob
Excellent guide. I just need to work out how number of shots & differential make up the depth of focus stack. Good tip about finger & hand to mark the beginning & end of the stack too.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the explanation, it helps! Olympus did the worst implementation of this feature I can think of - instead of giving it the endpoints (nearest and farthest) and let it calculate the necessary steps, we have to experiment to get even the distance range ourself … but better than nothing …
What are you using for screen recording? (Just switching from macOS to Windows 10 and therefor can no longer just use Quicktime to do it.)
Tried my first practice attempt using the "Focus Bracketing" feature on my E-M10ii. I was disappointed to learn it doesn't work on adapted manual lenses. Only on the new Oly lenses. I guess I should've read the comment section first. Tried it using the Oly 45mm lens and worked as advertised. Picolay software did its job as well. Oh well, live & learn. Still a great video !
Thank you!
Oh, brilliant once again. You are my 'go to ' tutor for anything olympus. Thanks so much!
Keep up the good work.
Thanks!
What a fantastic video. You are a great teacher and I look forward to every video you do and learn something each time.
Thank you very much!
Very well explained and nice tip of the beginning and end point, never thought about it. Also another downside of stacking is it's only supports Oly Pro and Macro lenses.
I've used focus stacking on the kit Oly14-42 lens, and my Panasonic 25mm f/1.7, so it seems it works with any native micro four thirds lens. Thanks for the kind words and your feedback!
Rob Trek i haven't used stacking since I only have the PenF, but good to know it's working, One more good thing about Olympus!
Another great one,Rob. You sure are helping me understand my Olympus better.
Thanks, Steve!
Didn't even knew my cheap little Olympus can do this LOL
Thank you for the video.
Glad to help!
I think that all macro lenses suffer from severe focus breathing, which actually renders focus stacking redundant. I do wish that in the near future... Olympus will consider a firmware update with the selection of start and end point(s) and let the camera choose the number of shots at a certain aperture value.
Excellent tutorial by the way. Thank you very much for your time and effort.
Thanks. I think the camera would have to calculate distance as well, which it might already be doing with every shot anyway, but not showing us.
Hi Rob thanks so much for an easy to follow video , will get out and give it a go . Cheers
Thanks for the tip on the software. I used it with pictures from my Pentax K-1 that I manually focused. Works great!
Glad that worked! Thanks.
A really good video this, nice and steady, clear instructions at a pace that allows for understanding and absorbing each point. I liked this, thankyou.
Thanks for watching!
One nice feature of Nikon cameras is they allow you to save your stack of images to a distinct folder. No need to mark the beginning or endpoint. That would be a pretty easy firmware upgrade I think.
That would be nice!
Such fantastic and simply explanation of bracketing Thank You ..!!!!
Thank you, Jerzy. I try.
Very interesting technique, thanks for the video.
Thanks for watching!
I love the hand trick. Very useful tip!!
Thanks. Glad you like that one.
I like the tip about the hand for marking.
Thanks. Comes in handy (pun intended) when changing out adapted lenses too.
Great video Rob, I've watched it three times so far. Very helpful. I don't have a modern macro or other lens appropriate so I tried doing this with my old adapted manual lenses and I took multiple shots moving the focus slightly manually. I used your point and stop technique and it was easy to find the photos on my computer when I got home. The Picolay software worked great. I will be referring back to this video many times as I experiment with focus bracketing, hopefully with an electronic lens. You are an excellent instructor and I like your humility and encouraging attitude.
Question: Does an Adobe product (Lightroom or Photoshop) do a better job than Picolay? It is a little hard for me to tell because I'm using my old Tamron 90. From the photo stacked images I've seen online, I'm guessing maybe Adobe is a bit better? Curious if you have tried and compared. Thanks!
Thanks. I may have to copyright the Point and Stop technique LOL. I haven't compared the adobe stacking with picolay.
Another excellent video Rob. I know it's a few years old but still very relevant. It's was thanks to your videos (plus Jimmy's & Robin's) that I got back into photography and M43 (lockdown life saver!) and have recently bought the Pen-elp9. I love the camera but after just a few months I now want an EM5 Mkiii too! As for the focus bracketing - wouldn't it be a great idea if the camera automatically added say a pure green photo at the start of the image sequence and a red one at the end? I know it's unlikely to happen now with the sad Olympus news, but just thought that would have been a neat future option! Anyway, keep up the excellent videos and tutorials, they are very much appreciated.
That would be great. Seems simple enough to implement. Thanks.
Be nice if I could combine high Rez mode and focus stacking. Today I was photographing the states Constitution and 80MP is not enough as was the deep depth of field at f16.
Maybe in the Wow camera.
You could do it manually I suppose. Not the same thing, I know.
Awesome video - thank you for taking the time to make it. Very in-depth and informative, I learned so much.
Thanks for watching!
Hi Rob, Great tutorial. I keep referring to your older tutorials, they help out a lot. I noticed in one of your demo photos in exposure bracketing tutorial that you had a sun burst (sun rays) in one of the photos. How did you get that. Is the video from you on this? Thanks.
Thanks. Not sure about the sunburst, but typically you stop the lens down to f/16 to f/22 to get sunburst effect. Helps if something is partially blocking the sun such as a building or tree. Some lenses render starburst better than others.
Thanks a lot Rob
I will try the stacking software you use. Up to now I've never achieved as good results as the stacking out of camera using lightroom 6, olympus sw or On1 photo raw.
Why is olympus not providing a stacked raw picture 😞
Glad to help. Don't see why Olympus couldn't do that in a firmware.
Hi Rob, thanks for this video. I am doing focus bracketing for my landscape photos and stack it in Photoshop. Another technique for minimizing the noise in low light landscape photography is exposure blending with Photoshop. My question, is it possible to combine both techniqes? E.g. shooting 50 images with focus stacking and process it in Photoshop. When stacking the image in PS will the noise automatically be minimized? Thanks for your opinion.
I don't think that can be done in-camera. What you could do is use an external intervalometer to take 50 shots with bracketing on. So you'll have 50 sets of bracketed shots.
Just came across your channel, some really good info to help out us omd shooters, thanks for all your work.
Thank you for your feedback. Glad to help!
Hi Rob, thanks for all the great and informative videos - you make all this information easier to understand. I have a question about this video on focus bracketing. How does the camera know where to stop ? You used the ruler as your subject and you chose the start point and you also set it for 20 individual shots. Same for the mushroom. You chose the initial focus point but you did not set the end point for the camera to stop in either example. How do you/how does the camera know where to stop the 20th photo (or however many you set it for)? Follow that? Thank you! Ken Hassman
There are a lot of variables the camera calculates. We can only choose the first point of focus. From there, I make a guess as to what can be done based on the settings available. Shooting at a short distance and only looking to go a little farther from that there is easy work. As the starting distance and range of focus increases, its purely guesswork and only trial and error. Throw in using different lenses with different focal lengths and it gets way over my head. Sometimes you only need 20 steps in short increments, sometimes 50 steps in large increments. Sometimes you might pick a starting point, set 50 steps, but then the camera only takes 10 pictures because there are only 10 steps left of focus range from the starting point to infinity. I'm so sorry, but I don't do this kind of photography enough to guide you any further but hopefully gave you a starting point!
@@RobTrek Thanks Rob, I hear you regarding getting way over your head! Thanks for taking the time to reply. Your videos are really helpful.
Hi Rob...have you ever used an Olympus E-20..it is, or was a 5mp camera from the early 2000's..I thought of it when watching another fine video of yours...
No, never used any of the older 4/3 systems.
Hi I am enjoying watching videos and finding it very helpful with my new E-M1 mark 11,have just made the switch from Nick D 600 I've been with Nick on for a long time, I am interested The Focus stacking have been following the video but when it comes to choosing how many pictures it won't highlight it for me to select
I believe the in camera focus stacking is fixed to 8 frames. You can select the number of frames in focus bracketing, then you have to stack them in software. Thank you for your question!
Thank you for your Quick response
Rob, great video, as usual,can I ask a question pksase? When you chose20 shots was that by trial a derror or an you pre choose the dustqnce? Cheers from the UK.
It was just a guess after some trial and error. Thanks.
Very useful information. I surely will give it a try. Thanks for the upload...
Thank you!
Thanks so much for this video Rob.. #1 for my Olympus... Do you know some software for Mac similar to PICOLAY?. Thanks in advance.
Thanks, Jota. Sorry, not familiar with anything Mac.
thanks Rob...
Thank you for this vidio,great again. Wich lens you use here?
I used the Olympus 14-42 powerzoom kit lens.
@@RobTrek thank you
Great informative video, but doesn't Olympus cameras that include this firmware (like the Em1- Mk2 for example) , stack all the bracketed images together in the camera giving you one fully in focus JPeg image without the need for any post processing PC software ( unless you want a RAW file of course) ?
Yes, some models do stacking in-camera. However, it only works with certain lenses. Generally all the "Pro" lenses and a few others.
@@RobTrek Hi Rob, many thanks for getting back to me...I have done some research and there is very good news for macro photographers , both the Olympus macro lens, the 30m and 60m (though not 'Pro' ) are actually compatible with the In Camera Stacking firmware , if anyone, like me, is interested in Macro photography I think that is brilliant, very often you find not all the planets line up, so to speak..😊
Very helpfull explanation. Thx for the tip for the free software. Only one tiny critism: the music was a bit too loud.
Thanks for the feedback! You are not alone on the music being too loud. I'm working on audio. I found the speakers on my laptop plays the music much softer than voice. Looking into a decent set of monitor headphones and studying other videos to better balance music and voice. In my last tutorial, I left the music out altogether.
Olympus just released new firmware 4.0 bringing the focus stacking function EM5 II. Could you make a video to introduce how it works on EM5 II? Thanks a lot
I don't have an em5-ii yet, but will look into it. Should be the same as the em1-ii.
Its the same as the em1-ii. with the same issues. Would be a lot easier if it was a start-end rather than a start -increment but its better then not having it at all ( e.g. my nikons!) .
works well in the studio or other fixed and repeatable but if traveling its a pain to get the increment right.
.
Rob .. great video and presentation
Rob, for the camera shooting, you do the work in manual focus and you than shoot every single photo manually, correct?
If using an autofocus lens, the camera does the focusing.
Great videos you show us. In this video I wunder that you show us the bracketing and you say ...let us go to the computer (to create the photo out of the 20 single files) but you start a new photo session outside. We can not see the final photo of the ruler. Best regards Gerd from Germany
I thought the photo of the ruler was boring, so I went outside. Thanks for your question!
Thank you for your quick response. I just check out which Olympus camera I should buy. I use a Nikon D300 and a olympus Pen PL7. The PL7 is fine, but I miss a viewfinder and the focus blacking feature. My Olympus favourites are the omd m5 m2 and the Pen F. What is your proposal. Olympus Germany offers now 200 Euro cashback for the m5. Your comment is highly appreciated.
The em5 has a better viewfinder and microphone jack. The PenF more features for jpeg, color modes, monochrome modes, etc. If you like to adapt lenses, then the penf has lens data feature that is very helpful. Other than that, the differences are very small. You may want to consider the em10-ii, it costs about half and uses the same battery as your pl7.
Great video! I'm just beginning to use this feature. Can anyone tell me whether the focus only moves from front to back (down to up, on the camera screen), or also left-to-right (or right-to-left)? I am into nature photography so rarely can put items on a table top. Often, I'm on the side of a log with items running left-right, and with irregular objects that have some parts near and some parts far. (EM10--mkII)
Thanks. You have to think in three dimensions. The camera will move the focus point front to back. Think of a 2 dimensional flat plane that is parallel to the plane of your sensor that moves in steps along the one dimension (depth). Everything that plane crosses at each step will be in focus - in all directions on two dimensions (height and width).
@@RobTrek Got it! Yes, this makes sense, thanks. Still tricky setting everything up on the end of a log covered in tiny fungal growths.
Very interesting, thank you for another great video!
Thanks for watching!
Hi,
Thanks for that video.
I m asking me two questions :
The first : does the focus braketing mean that we necessarily shoot on a tripod ?
The second : does this function is usable on evry mirco 4/3 lens (i mean with automatic focusing of course) ...for example does that function is usable with panasonic lens on a em1 Mk3 Olympus body ??
Thanks a lot.
Oliver (i'm sorry my english is certainly not at the best cause i'm french !)
You should use a tripod. You can try without it but it would be difficult. Focus bracketing should work with most lenses from both Olympus and Panasonic. I'm not sure which ones don't work if any.
Good explanation, but I don't think the back edge of the mushroom was in focus?
OK, it looked better when you went 1:1.
Also, some other objects like the camera LCD looked soft as well. Also, some other photographers' sample images also looked soft.
It must be the resolution of the video that ends up being published.
I have also seen other videos of different subject matter, being tack sharp. I have a hi res screen set to the max resolution.
It's possible it wasn't in focus. I rarely use the feature myself but I imagine with some practice of the various settings would yield excellent results.
I would like to know what brand tripod you have there...I want one like yours that can go all the way down to the ground,
Manfrotto Pixi
Tdear Rob thanks for your great videos , can you tell me how to check if is is working on my epl1 tks
I'm sorry, but focus bracketing is not a feature built into the Pen E-PL line. You will have to manually focus each shot, then you can use the software I mentioned in the video. Thank you for your question!
What is the correllation between the camera setting and the total distance covered by the Bracketing?
I guess I can foresee a lot of frustration here until Olympus lets you choose a start point and an end point, then automatically takes the correct number of shots based on the lens aperture.
That would be a cool feature. It would have to take into account focal length, distance and angle of inception of the subject from the camera as well. They could probably do it for specific lenses in their lineup as I'm sure the optical properties of the lens would affect the focusing steps at different distances. It would have to do a dry run first, like when contrast detect overshoots then steps back. Or maybe I'm over thinking it. Great question!
Hello Rob, i must have done something wrong: Trying to use focus bracketing, in shows on my super control panel only the sign for
silent picture series H. Clicking on it nothing happens and I just cannot chance it and also I cannot do any focus bracketing.
Turning focus bracketing off and choosing shutter bracketing everything works fine again.
I don't know what to do anymore.
Would be very grateful for help.
Which camera do you have exactly? I recommend doing a full reset of the camera first then follow the instructions here very carefully. Don't try to setup any custom modes yet. Watch my video on how to setup mysets once you get the bracketing working.
While applying the bracketing, you only selected first focusing point. What about the last focusing point?
Not sure what that focus differential scale meter is. What is 1 to 10 indicates? Anything like in cm, mm, inch?
I find this technique very useful and thinking to use it for even landscape.
This is a great question! The scale is not based on distance. It is simply how much it will move the focus point for each step in bracketing. The distance between each focus point is relative to the angle of the focal plane. Think of 1 on the scale as turning the focus ring in very small steps, and 10 as turning the focus ring in larger steps. It's difficult to explain and I may have to do a video on this specific concept. Thanks for your question!
Rob Trek Thank you very much for your instant reply.
The tutorial is very well explained by you. I have already tried this technique for some smaller objects using panasonic 42.5 f1.7 lens. The technique works great but some artifects are noticed when stacked using picolay. I am not sure the issue was with lens focus breathing or actual stacking process. It can be double checked using photoshop. Anyway I will try using the same technique for broader scale to check the effect and usability.
Thanks once again...
Sadly Picolay seems to be Window only. I cannot get it to install on my Mac
I don't use mac, but I'm sure there are other solutions. Wish I could help. -Rob
Very clear,thanks
Thanks for your feedback!
Too bad you can't use the bracketing feature with Olympus 4/3 lenses. I have a nice 7-14mm f/4 Zuiko that I would like to stack images. Of course, I still can by manually taking the shots. Not ideal, but doable.
Hi agaib, maybe I am blind but I have a problem. I follow your suggestions on my Pen-F to make focus braketing. I have set 20 photos with number 5 for distance lenght. I save the settings and in the menu I see indeed that BKT is active. I have latest Oly fimware 3.1 for my Pen-F and I use a Zuiko 12-40 ED F/2,8 Pro. When I fire the images I get only couple of images taken automatically. How come??? Should the camera take 20 images automatically and change focus automatically?
Most likely you are focusing on a distant subject. When the lens is already focused near infinity, there aren't many "steps" left. Try a focus point closer to the camera.
Do you think focus bracketing and focus stacking is something really worth having and taking advantage of, or I should be able to take good enough macro photos with a MF vintage macro lens like the Olympus OM 50mm f3.5?
You can manually bracket with the OM. However, if you do a lot of macro, the bracketing is handy but you'd have to buy a focus bracketing compatible lens. So a substantial investment.
Good, informative video. Thanks
Thank you, Peter! Appreciate your feedback!
What lens are you using here
It's the Olympus 14-42mm EZ pancake power zoom kit lens. It has a rubber lens hood on it.
Nice. thanks
picolay.de seems not to work with a mac. Is there any other free software available ?
I'm so sorry, but I'm not familiar with apple products. picolay is the only software that I am aware of that is free. -Rob
What kind of lens did you use for this video?
Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 on the mushrroom, Olympus 14-42mm EZ on the prop.
Rob Trek Thanks!
Is Focus stacking with flash possible?
Great question! Got it covered here: ruclips.net/video/CohZgm8Qj44/видео.html
Thank you.
Thanks for watching!
Thank you... Love your work
Thank you, Sam!
The Focus BKT option in my E-M10 M2 is greyed out...what am I missing?
Focus BKT may not be available with every lens. What lens are you using?
@@RobTrek oh, that explains it. I was using an old manual focus lens. Need to try with my stock Olympus 14-42mm
Yep, it worked. Thanks
Which common (budget) lenses work with Focus BKT on an M10 Mark II? (thinking of 25mm 1.8; 45mm 1.8; 40-150 R, 30mm 3.5 macro?)
(Olympus says: PRO lenses + 60mm 2.8 macro, but the 14-42 appears to work for Nun Coelho)
@@torstenkenning Hi K, I also tried with M10 Mark ii with kit lens (14-42mm) and it is working. Only thing which is not showing is to set the time.
i tried to download picolay but it says file corrupted..
DId you get picolay to install yet? Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. Let me know. Thanks. -Rob
its okay Rob, no rush.. its says "there was a problem while reading the content of the file "install_PICOLAY_180407.exe". data is corrupted.. i clicked continue anyway, but nothing happen
PS: The problem was, I wanted to store both on different custom places so I made a mistake on the way.
Just don't know what I did wrong.
Which camera do you have exactly? I recommend doing a full reset of the camera first then follow the instructions here very carefully. Don't try to setup any custom modes yet. Watch my video on how to setup mysets once you get the bracketing working.
@@RobTrek
The Olympus OM-D E-M 10 Mark ii. I followed before your video "bracketing made easy" and ist works perfectly.
It everything still does as soon as I torn off Focus Bracketing, which I up to now nearly never used.
So I tried to set the Focus Bracketing on the silent custom place for having both, the shutter and the focus bracketing. That's where I must have made the mistake.
I endet up showing me the normal silent place without being able to click it on and change anything whenever
I choose Focus Bracketing. And that does not work either.
I cannot anyhow just reset the shutter speed?
Another free stacking software aimed at astrophotography: www.astronomie.be/registax/
Thank you! I'll try that next time I do some asto!
Hi Rob, another interestng and useful video. There´s something I´d like to ask you. Have you upgraded your PEN-F to firmware ver. 2? I am experiencing this bug which turns off the camera (just like that) and you can turn it on only put pulling the battery off and on. I hope u r not having the same problem, but if you have, could you share your experience with us? Guys on DPreview have discussed about this: www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4159630
I updated to 2.0 on May 9th. Have not had that problem since updating. However, I did have that problem back in October, so sent it in. I think I was on firmware version 1.1. They replaced the eye viewfinder (not really clear on the work order). I have taken about 15,000 pictures since that fix and roughly 3000 pictures since the update. I shoot usually with the screen facing out, but sometimes with the screen closed facing in.
Yt
?
How to Pronounce ISO
Film speed was rated by using the ASA number, American Standards Association (now named ANSI).
Film speed use to be referred to by the acronym A.S.A.; It is now referred to by the ISO rating.
ISO is pronounced (eye-so) not I.S.O, it is not an acronym.
ISO is the name of a company.
Is this mispronunciation now a permeant mistake that will never be corrected?
“Because 'International Organization for Standardization' would have different acronyms in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation), our founders decided to give it the short form ISO. ISO is derived from the Greek isos, meaning equal.” ISO is pronounced “eye-so” not I.S.O. it is not an acronym.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations.
Founded on 23 February 1947, the organization promotes worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial standards. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and as of March 2017 works in 162 countries.
It was one of the first organizations granted general consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
useless disturbing music. at least silent.
Sorry about that. This was very early when I started. My new tutorial videos have no music..
very wise man. seldom. thanks a lot. OM is misleading but i understand now. OMD would be wiser@@RobTrek
Uummmm.... you know..... oh Kay...... unnmmm.... you know......
Thanks. I'm working on my verbal ticks. It's hard even for me to watch myself sometimes!
It's a hard job to compile and present a video that is smooth and perfect. I think that you have done a really good job on this. Ok, so yes you did do a few ums and ers but there is no need to be rude about it like Mr Richards here, and your courteous reply that accepts your slight shortcomings answers him perfectly. Well done, and thanks for a really good video that you have taken the time to create which has helped me out for free!
@@RobTrek Just be yourself :)
I found that the OM System Workspace works better for me than Picolay.
I'll have to revisit the Workspace feature. Thanks.
@@RobTrek Well, it might be a case of 'YMMV' but it worked for me. It's not perfect by any means. It's nowhere near as neat as Picolay because it has so many other features but it will process .ORF files. I couldn't get Picolay to do that.