Macro Photography Focus Stacking Tutorial
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- Опубликовано: 3 авг 2024
- Focus stacking and questions of how its done is one of the most common questions that macro photographers receive. In this video I demonstrate some of techniques I use to capture my macro images whilst out in the field. This will be the first in a short series of videos that will explain my whole workflow from capturing the shots in camera (Video 1), to blending the images using dedicated software (Next Video) and other advanced post processing tips specifically designed for macro photography (Video 3) - so watch out for the follow up videos coming soon.
This episode is based solely around the 'In-Camera' Part of Focus Stacking. I look at two different types of cameras and discuss the differences between the more manual nature of DSLR (Non-bracketing) shooting and the OM-SYSTEM in-camera focus bracketing.
Im hoping that this will help give you the tools to start attacking stacks and feel more confident in what you need as a base to start creating some highly detailed images. If this video has been helpful for you, please let me know via comment, like, subscribe or share - I would love to hear from you.
All the best, Jamie.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
2:14 What is Focus Stacking?
5:39 Considerations
9:48 Alternative Stacking Methods
14:04 Stacking On The Move
15:48 Cover Your Bases (Overcompensate)
19:36 Settings
24:20 Mirrorless OM System Stacking
29:01 Optimising
34:23 Final Thoughts
36:19 Thanks For Watching
/ jamiehalldefinitiveima...
Give this man an Oscar. Absolute perfection.
Thanks Buja Boi. Much appreciated. 😉
I’m starting out in macro photography and have a canon R5 I appreciate your tutorials I, sure it will make a big difference
Thanks Jamie for a great video on photo-stacking tips & very well put together.
I've just brought the cygnust3ch Diffuser, improved my shots, very noticeable.
Thanks for video! Сlarified some points👍 I always used the push method, a few days ago I accidentally shot a spider using the focus ring method, 3 frames, but I was very surprised how they fit perfectly into a stack. Moreover, before that I had an autofocus lens, and I did the stacking automatically through the program from my smartphone, using the focus ring method, and the stacking was cleaner. Best wishes from Ukraine! ❤
well im glad to hear that, thanks very much, best of luck in your future stacking!
Thank you man! I'm trying to eat some pancakes 🥞 and those tips are really helpful 📸
I was ready to ask about processing and I'm happy to hear this is a series that will include such! Thanks!
Thanks very much for the comment man, hopefully I’ll knock it out soon.
@@JamieHallDefinitiveImaging looking forward to it!
A very good overview. On tip which might be useful to you, is a brace/support, which works when you can rest your elbows on the ground, or against a tree. In essence, it is a stick, which can be an actual stick, a bamboo cane, a monopod not used conventionally, a walking pole etc. You grip the stick at the right height and rest the end of your lens on the left hand gripping the stick, and the rubber eye-piece surround against your eyebrow. I really need to make a tutorial video, because there are a lot of subtle tricks to how you can use this, which would take a lot of words to explain. Yes, diffusers like yours would possible get in the way. But there are ways around this like holding the stick at an angle. I admit I tend to use it more for natural light, but I have used it for my own flash and diffuser set ups.
I gave up doing deep stacks many years ago, simply because I found myself wasting far too much time trying to make them work on the computer. So for a lot of years I've just been doing small stacks, just 2-3 images for an extended plane of focus. But now I've got an Olympus system I might try some deeper ones again this year. I actually started playing around with field stacks 18 years ago, when people were only using the software for microscope work. I think one of the big problems is getting a bit too obsessed, trying to stack everything. I've been interested in this angle, because I tend to find non-photographers and non-specialist naturalists, have tendency to mistake scale, and think the subject is a lot bigger than it really is.
All very true works Stephen. I think we are also so used to seeing smaller things with thin focus planes it kind of tricks your brain when you see something with all the details. I definitely went through a stage early on of wanting or feeling like I needed to stack everything, but often I’m looking for singles and interesting compositions and just doing deep stacks and portraits isn’t for me. There are too many ways to present the greatness in wildlife.
@@JamieHallDefinitiveImaging - Yes, composition, and the magic angle is all important with singles, because there are only a few angles that work. I got into photographing pollinators feeding in flowers. It was a real art composing on the fly with a constantly moving insect. So no chance of stacking. I haven't done as much for quite a few years, concentrating more on birds. But I'm surprised given how much information I put out, that this style of photography hasn't caught on more. I want to get back into it, but where I live now, I've been struggling to find both the right habitat, flowers, and concentrations of insects, because only a few individual pollinators will tolerate you sticking your lens right into the flower with them, and carry on feeding.
14:46 - 15:05 - that's a new trick I've just learnt.
18:15 - 18:17 - "tatatatata..." 😂.
Amazing video Jamie.
Hahaha, I laughed at that cause it’s terrible 😂
@@JamieHallDefinitiveImaging 😂😂😂 it's good to me. Need those sometimes to make the video more interesting.
Very precise and in-depth info! Thanks! There were some points I haven’t yet thought about, despite constantly overthinking everything 😂.
Hi Jamie, I just recently stumbled on your channel and am now binge watch all of your episodes. By far the best videos on this topic. You are to be commended on your work. Most enjoyable and educational. Thx.
Just starting my macro journey and have found your videos extremely helpful. Thankyou
Super pleased to hear it, that’s exactly what I’m aiming for 😉
Thnx for all of your info, photo stacking with the Olympus was an eye opener for me. Never heard of it. Tnx!!!
Excellent presentation! Introduced me to the stacking method using turning the focus ring from front to back of the subject which I test drove right away with good results!!! (I am using the Sigma 105 DG DN Macro). Thank you so much! BIG Like!
Mate.. that was perfect. Thankyou
Thank you man! I have been following you on instagram and I am happy to see here such a video :) Big up from Germany ;)
This is awesome - so helpful and has cleared up some things I was confused about. Thank you!
Thank you!!!!!
Thanks very much Jamie, really helpful advice. 👍 🙂
Terrific job, Jamie! I appreciate your in-depth coverage of stacking; I'm just dipping my toe into it. Thank you.
Thank you, Bob. Im pleased to hear that you found it helpful. Best of luck in your macro journey. Its quite addictive.
Excellent series Jamie. Picked up lots of great tips. Will give stacking a proper try. Love to see a video on how you approach insects on the wild. It's definitely a thing I need to work on. 😂
Really excited about watching these episodes . Thanks so much !
Much appreciated, hope they help
This was such a good video - Can’t wait to see more tutorials from you or an “in the field” stacking video too / some post work
Cheers 🤙🏽
Good sensible advice especially relating to OM gear users. Thanks.
This pretty much sums it up perfectly. 👏👏👏
That’s very cool to hear from such a name in the game, mate. I’m glad you think so, thanks.
Thanks for this man... Great job... 👏👏👏
My pleasure mate, thanks for watching
Excellent video - thanks very much
Appreciate the comment, thanks
Thank you Jamie,
some of the tips are really obvious now you’ve said them but I hadn’t worked them out for myself!
More than welcome, glad I could help. Thanks for the comment!
Great tutorial. Thanks mate
Thanks very much for your comment, glad you enjoyed it
Great tutorial Jamie. Easy and clear explanation.
Thanks very much Bart, much appreciated.
What a brilliant intro! I feel like giving it a proper go now! Thanks!!
Glad to hear it, thanks very much.
Nice one
Great info, some of the best content I’ve seen on macro!
appreciate that very much, thank you. Glad it was helpful!
Thanks Jamie really really really helpful, as I believe you said, there is not a lot of reference stuff out there, not as helpful as this anyway!
Really pleased to hear it Simon, thank you.
Thanks Jamie, I’ve been stacking for a while but hadn’t thought of twisting the focus ring instead of moving in, despite knowing that how my cameras auto stacking does it, I’ll give it a try👍
Thanks very much for the comment. There will be times where one is better than the other, but I found I was putting myself in more positions to go for the focus ring and it certainly worked in my favour
Thanks Jaime! Answered a lot of questions I’ve had, even just simple questions like “what differential”. Looking forward to the processing part, have even more questions there. Thanks again
I’m super pleased to hear it bud, best of luck and hopefully I’ll next out the next instalment soon
Do you have any techniques you can share for keeping steady in less than ideal situations?
Perfect, whens part 2 coming? Thanks for the effort you put into your videos.
Much appreciated, thank you. Will be a few weeks as I’m actually on vacation at the moment! But I’ll be knocking it out asap
@@JamieHallDefinitiveImaging Still waiting for part 2 ;-)
Great tutorial! I was hoping for a post-processing part, for example: do you often manually rotate and align images in order to get a stack working? or do you consider frames which are not aligned correctly as lost? ---- nevermind, just saw that you have announced a follow-up video! Looking forward to it, keep up the great work!
Nice video.
Not sure what the setting would be on other platforms but Nikon has a manual change for high or low motor drive, with the low setting being adjustable allowing you to match the interval capability of your flash.
Great tutorial- just starting my macro journey! May I ask what clamp you use please?
Great stuff Jamie. Will you cover flash setup in more detail at all? I still struggle with that (I use focus stacking with natural light but the flash always fires very slowly for me so I tend to do single shots only, EM1 MKII).
Thanks very much. Outside of the three that I’ve spoken about, I’m hoping to just keep dropping little bits and pieces, so no doubt looking closer at the flash is on the cards, but not sure when. Hopefully soon
Hi Jamie. This is so helpful. I have OM1 and am about to buy flash. When you said you could do the bracketing on a faster speed is this a feature in the camera or the flash please, thanks. I do focus stacking now, and at 9pm one speed, so bracketing and flash will be new
Great video. Thanks. I’m going to give it a go this week using my Sony a7riv, Sony 90mm macro and raynox 250. Still awaiting the arrival of my diffuser from Australia though! Which method would you recommend for a seasoned macro photographer but completely new to stacking?
Excellent video. Thank you
Would like to know where you brought the specimen holder
I’m not actually sure, it was a gift. But I know it’s actually meant for things like board fixing and soldering, that sort of work.
Really excellent video. Covered everything. I am fairly new to macro but addicted completely. I do struggle with moving subjects though and stability when holding is a bit of an issue for me. One question - when you do the focus ring turning method for stacking I assume you do individual shots or do you use high speed bursts while turning?
I think many do use burst mode, but I prefered to have control as often manually turning the ring means its not very consistent. So i'm actually looking carefully at the focus point on the subject and then taking shots at a calm pace. I think it also ecomomises on frames too.
Many thanks
Thank you! How do I determine focus differential?
Excuse me, could you tell me where you can buy those macro cone speakers that you use in the video?
Thanks in advance and congratulations for the tutorial.
Awesome tutorial! Where can I get the yellow base/clamp? I think I saw that in another one of your videos.
I actually can't remember sorry, it was bought for me as a gift. Its
actually like a soldering / workbench tool which was much cheaper than the Plamps. Hope that helps
Thanks Jamie, very nice work. Curious if you've any recommendations on flash gear - not sure if my lower end Godox (TT350) would recycle fast enough for automated focus bracketing with my Lumix G9.
I dont think you should have too much of a problem, you would just need to adapt with the settings and get good light economy from a diffuser that wasnt too thick. aiming for 1/32 should be fine for recycle time.
Thanks Jamie - Actually coughed up for the V350 which has a NiCad pack and is MUCH faster - the other nut to crack was that the G9 disables auto bracketing with a flash attach so I had to use a cold shoe and a sync cable...now if I could just get the jumping spiders to hold still long enough to shoot a decent stack!
Hi Jamie, when shooting with the mirrorless using focus bracketing, did you keep it in manual focusing? Great video!
Yes mate, I barely use autofocus on this system
Can you do focus stacking with the OM-1 and 90mm I’ve done every setting and it won’t focus stack.
I’m renting it and I want make sure it’s not broken before getting charged
Jamie where did you get the diffuser?
thanks but what your flash model please !
What flash do you use in this video? I Buy an 60mm macro and i have the em1x Big hug from Argentina
This might be a stupid question but I’m only new to the OM System and macro. Do I need to have the bracketing setting on to focus stack on the OM1? Every time I try to stack it doesn’t work so I know I’m definitely doing something wrong. 😂
Focus stacking combines the images into a stacked JPEG in camera. It's super easy, but you're limited to 15 frames and the result is obviously a jpeg, so you don't get as much flexibility in post. This option does not require a computer. Focus bracketing is kind of the same, except it doesn't have the same limitations and it doesn't try to combine it in camera. It's up to you to download the images from your SD card and combine them using software like Helicon Focus or Photoshop. What do you mean by "it doesn't work"? Does it just say "failed"? You may be moving too much?
@@derpenstocks yeah it’s saying that it failed to stack. I hold my breath and I think I’m not moving……lol. Maybe I will keep trying and see how I go. Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. Cheers 👍🏻
Yeh, if there is substantial movement it will fail in camera. Definitely worth resting your camera on something. Best of luck!
Do you have any issues with focus breathing