Thread: First try with focus stacking

Today I tried focus stacking for the first time ever. I downloaded a trial version of Zerene Stacker (home [Zerene Stacker]) yesterday. Today I took 11 pics with the NEX-7, LA-EA2 and Sony SAL 100mm/2,8 macro and a homemade focusing rail. Its not a very good pic but was made in a short time just to se if it works:

Yep, that worked.

DeepFocus… Stack Attack! LOL I'm get a t-shirt made up that says that.

Nice. I love focus stacking though I've only done it a handful of times. Works great though. I use PS to do mine.

Macro photography and focus stacking seem to be a very interesting field to explore. I am dreaming of a StackShot assembly but price is rather steep. With P&P, custom fees and VAT it will raise from $660 purchase price to about $950 when finally picked up at the post office.

Maybe it will be cheaper to buy an airline ticket and make a short holiday to the US and pick it up myself

sheesh...yeah, may very well be cheaper. I LOVE macro...that's kinda my thing I guess. I just hope this new NEX6 I got today does a decent job.

I downloaded a free Lightroom plug-in called Enfuse (file size limit is removed by donating but otherwise the free version is a fully working version). Used it to blend 3 photos at 1 stop exposure differences (-1 0 +1) and it worked really well for that. Not tried focus stacking with it yet though - would /will be my first attempt at stacking too.

LR/Enfuse - Blend Multiple Exposures Together in Adobe Lightroom

Originally Posted by Michael Johansson

Today I tried focus stacking for the first time ever. I downloaded a trial version of Zerene Stacker (home [Zerene Stacker]) yesterday. Today I took 11 pics with the NEX-7, LA-EA2 and Sony SAL 100mm/2,8 macro and a homemade focusing rail. Its not a very good pic but was made in a short time just to se if it works:

Nice first try! Any chance we may see a picture of your homemade focusing rail?

Not much to see really. It is just the bottom part of a bellows with focusing rail. The bellows part is removed and replaced with a distance block and a ARCA clamp.

It is good for focusing and focus stacking of larger items where movement between shots are at least two millimetres or more. When it comes to very small items like bugs and 1:1 macros or larger magnifications it is useless as movement is less than one millimetre. It is ompossible to make such small adjustments with bellows focusing rail. StackShot is the way to go then or any manually micrometre operated linear table. But then we are talking €/£/$!

Here is a pic of my set up for the picture above.

Too complicated for me. I just use a tripod and manually adjust the focus on my lens. Seems to get acceptable results....