Thank you guys so much for voting for my soft-focus selfie. I am honored to get to host the next technique challenge and after considering a few different things, I have decided to go in the opposite direction of soft focus and choose FOCUS STACKING. Let's make things sharp!
What is focus stacking? According to wikipedia, Focus stacking (also known as focal plane merging and z-stacking or focus blending) is a digital image processing technique which combines multiple images taken at different focus distances to give a resulting image with a greater depth of field than any of the individual source images. Focus stacking can be used in any situation where individual images have a very shallow depth of field; macro photography and optical microscopy are two typical examples. Although focus stacking technique can be found in landscape photography also.
If you don't have Photoshop, I believe there are a few other things out there that you can use (Zerene, Enfuse from what I could find from googling...there may be others).
The challenge will start tomorrow, Thursday, December 10 and end Monday, December 28. Tag your photo: "technique50"
Please feel free to give feedback, tips, suggestions and you can post your focus stacking images here in this thread as examples. Most of all, have fun!
Past topics have included the following:
1. Low key
2. Motion blur
3. Split toning
4. Flipped reflections
5. Long exposure
6. Professional looking portraits
7. Mini portraits
8. Rim lighting
9. High/fast shutter speed
10. Vintage in modern
11. Double/multiple exposure
12. Forced perspective
13. Zoom burst
14. Multiplicity
15. Panning photography
16. ICM
17. Shaped bokeh
18. B&W
19. High key
20. In the night
21. One-light lighting
22. Refractions
23. Selective color
24. Tilt-shift
25. Into the sun/flare photography
26. white background
27. macro photography
28. Shooting blind
29. Framing
30. Light painting
31. Slow sync flash
32. Silhouettes
33. HDR (High Dynamic Range)
34. Minimalism
35. Panography
36. Blurism
37. Color Contrast (Complimentary Colors)
38. Diptych
39. Shadows
40. Ghost Shots
41. Portraits with Props
42. Negative Space
43. Low Key Portraits
44. Kinetic Photography (Camera toss)
45. Self Portraits
46. Flash photography
47. Triptych
48. Brenizer
49. Soft Focus
50. Focus Stacking
haven't done this for a while, but i have enjoyed it in the past, i find it tricky to exactly line up my shots when hand held so that photoshop will go to work on them, the last two i tried just didnt work, a challenge for sure :)
@kali66 I hope to see you do it again! I was playing around with it the last 2 nights because it's not anything I've ever done and found even using the tripod, I'd sometimes miss spots - like I'd adjust my focus between shots too much and there'd be a gap of blur amid the sharpness.
@annied Oh good! I was hoping it'd be something not everyone already did. It's new to me. Good luck! I hope it clicks for you!
This is something that I have wanted to do for a while but haven't gotten around to doing. I hope to be able to get something done within the time frame.
@kali66 That is wonderful! That kind of shot is on my bucket list to do. And I can see how you could use focus stacking for it since your DOF would be so shallow.
I played around with it the last 2 nights. This is the one I did yesterday, mainly to try it out. Now that I get the how of it, I'll definitely be playing with the technique more.
Alright guys! We are going to go ahead and extend this one more week to get past the busy holidays and give more people a chance to try it. So new deadline is the following Monday, Dec. 28.
@emrob - I intend to participate. I watched the video link that you supplied and it was the best I have come across. I tried focus stacking a while ago but wasn't happy with the results. I followed the instruction in this video and am pleased with the results. I used it on my mundane-gears shot. I will use another subject tomorrow.
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@annied Oh good! I was hoping it'd be something not everyone already did. It's new to me. Good luck! I hope it clicks for you!
@kali66 Kali, this is stunning!
@salza I hope you get the chance to try it out!
I played around with it the last 2 nights. This is the one I did yesterday, mainly to try it out. Now that I get the how of it, I'll definitely be playing with the technique more.