Focus Stacking Landscapes

[JohnRostron]

Following on from Brian's posting on Stone Sculpture stacking [URL="https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/thread60262.htm[/URL] I read around on the topic of focus stacking for landscapes. Although a few use the simple approach I mention below, many give what I see as unnecessarily complicated procedures. Most are agreed that, for landscapes, you only need a few images in the stack - three to five at the most. Many authors the spend time looking up hyperfocal distances to get the spacing. Others recommend looking at each image as you take it, then focussing on a spot just out of focus. Meanwhile, the light changes, or a tourist walks into your scene.

Why not take the simple approach: take one shot of the nearest point of interest. Then look at your focussing barrel and roughly divide the distance (on the barrel) between there and infinity by four; then take three more shots at this spacing and one at infinity. Assuming you have a reasonable aperture, this should give you a suitable stack in a lot less time.

Comments welcome.

John

[Rent]

John Not all lenses have distance markings on them. The canon 18-55mm & 55-250mm kit lenses for example. I suppose one could make a guess
Roy

[Stagecoach]

Whilst it's relatively easy to come up with the figures to determine exactly where you need to focus for any scene or subject the reality is that very few of us could actually control our equipment to match those figures.

How many photographers could set their cameras to a focus plane of say 34.6m or 267 m?

[JohnRostron]

John Not all lenses have distance markings on them. The canon 18-55mm & 55-250mm kit lenses for example. I suppose one could make a guess
Roy

My contention is that, even if there are no markings, then if you start at the near point, it should not be too difficult to interpolate three to five positions between there and infinity, which would be marked.

John

[NorthernFocus]

I totally agree that there's no need to over complicate how one chooses focal planes. However how many and how far apart is dependant on lens focal length, aperture, and scene composition(i.e.near/far points). As already pointed out, many modern lenses no longer have focal plane range marked on the barrel. But another simple method is to simply eyeball the desired distance between focal planes and identify corresponding objects in the scene to focus on. Then(assuming one is shooting on a tripod) use live view and move the camera's focus point to focus on each identified object for the desired number of frames.

Of course the need for focus stacking for landscapes pre-supposes that one is intent on truly optimizing sharpness across the entire scene.

[Black Pearl]

My contention is that, even if there are no markings, then if you start at the near point, it should not be too difficult to interpolate three to five positions between there and infinity, which would be marked.

John

Not all lenses have an infinity mark.

[billtils]

I'm probably missing something somewhere, but I'd have thought landscape was well down the list of genres where focus stacking had anything to offer ...

[Stagecoach]

I'm probably missing something somewhere, but I'd have thought landscape was well down the list of genres where focus stacking had anything to offer ...

One I often come up against is the scenario where you have a close foreground subject and are forced to use a wider aperture than is necessary to get the full scene depth in focus.

[pnodrog]

Unfortunately some fixed and many zoom lenses exhibit what is known as focus breathing (the focal length changes slightly with focus point) with landscape photography this is potentially a bigger problem when stacking than it is with macro.

I have just seen that NorthernFocus (Dan) already almost alluded to it.... Reminder to myself "I must read all posts carefully before charging in"....

[DanK]

Unfortunately some fixed and many zoom lenses exhibit what is known as focus breathing (the focal length changes slightly with focus point) with landscape photography this is potentially a bigger problem when stacking than it is with macro.

Is it? I only stack macros, but I am not sure why it would be different. Most macro lenses are internally focusing and have quite a bit of focus breathing. I suppose it must depend on lens design, but I have read that focus breathing is usually inversely proportional to focusing distance. All stacking involves merging images with different magnification, and modern software packages generally handle the differences in size seamlessly. When I started stacking, I found that some of the old software would fail in this respect, often toward the edges, producing outwardly radiating lines. That isn't a problem with the software I have used for years (Zerene). Under some circumstances, differences in magnification can cause halos around edges, but I don't know why this would be worse for landscapes.

Anyone here have substantial experience stacking both landscapes and macros? It would be good to hear about real experience, rather than my speculating.

[rpcrowe]

I have never stacked a landscape but, then again, I have never felt the need to stack a landscape.

When I am shooting a landscape with a predominate close subject included; I will most often be using a wide angle lens and a rather small aperture both of which contribute to a wide depth of field.

Additionally, stacking a landscape can cause sharpness problems when there is any type of breeze and foliage is included in the image...

[JohnRostron]

I'm probably missing something somewhere, but I'd have thought landscape was well down the list of genres where focus stacking had anything to offer ...

I would agree with Graeme. I was at Symonds Yat viewing platform last year, and it would be have been nice to get both my wife and the vista in it together, with both in focus. There are other circumstances where I would like foreground, middleground and background all in focus.

John

[NorthernFocus]

I'm probably missing something somewhere, but I'd have thought landscape was well down the list of genres where focus stacking had anything to offer ...

Like so many topics I suppose it depends on how/what one shoots and with what final product is intended. Certainly if one is shooting for web display or small/photo album prints, stacking makes little sense. But if one is truly interested in optimizing sharpness for large format printing(i.e.sizes historically reserved for medium/large format film) then it makes perfect sense.

Consider that with current gen high resolution sensors IQ begins to degrade with smaller apertures than f8-f11. Even with WA lenses at those sort of apertures and depending on scene composition, DOF quickly becomes an issue. So if one is truly interested in maximum attainable sharpness across the entire frame, then stacking becomes a consideration.

All that said, to-date I've yet to use stacking. I crank down the aperture and live with the results. But I'm not a serious landscape photographer much less doing so for "fine art" quality

[Manfred M]

Not all lenses have an infinity mark.

And the ones that do, this is not necessarily where the infinity focus is. Unlike the "old" lenses with a hard stop that was set on an optical bench, modern lenses and the distance settings are not necessarily all that accurate. The camera manufacturers assume that technology will be used to acquire sharp focus.

[rpcrowe]

AFAIK: Neither Ansel Adams nor Edmund Weston ever "stacked" their images. And they were "pretty fair" landscape photographers That is not to say that they would not have availed themselves of this technique had they been shooting digital

[NorthernFocus]

AFAIK: Neither Ansel Adams nor Edmund Weston ever "stacked" their images. And they were "pretty fair" landscape photographers That is not to say that they would not have availed themselves of this technique had they been shooting digital

I'm no expert on the topic but from what little I've read Ansel pushed the limits with technology. No doubt he'd have utilized everything that digital has to offer.

[Manfred M]

I'm no expert on the topic but from what little I've read Ansel pushed the limits with technology. No doubt he'd have utilized everything that digital has to offer.

Shooting at f/64 on a large view camera, he took care of getting a sharp image "in camera". Most of his pushing the boundaries was with how he handled his negatives and made his prints.

[NorthernFocus]

...Most of his pushing the boundaries was with how he handled his negatives and made his prints.

That's where the tech was in his day. There wasn't much tech to cameras. I'd bet he was constantly seeking better glass and film. But you make a good point regardless. If we were all shooting large format we'd not likely be discussing focus stacking.