Digital Photographer - USA (2019-07)

Focusstackinghasbecomea
popularpartofcapturingawesome
detailinmacrosubjectsformany
photographers.Inthisfeaturewewillrun
throughhownewcamerafeaturesand
softwarecanmakethisprocessquickand
accessibleforeveryone.
WehaveusedtheolympusoMD EM-1 Mk
II camera fitted with a 60mm macro lens
because, like many new cameras, it has an
excellent ‘in camera’ focus bracketing’ feature.
Many other manufacturers are also including
similar features on their latest models, but

if your camera does not have this setting,

you can still follow the process, but will need

to focus the camera manually through the

operationofcapturingthemultipleimages

thatfocusstackingrequires.

the process essentially entails two steps,

the acquisition of multiple images, all with

different parts of the subject in focus, and

then the blending, merging or stacking of

these images in appropriate software. We

have chosen to use Adobe Photoshop and its

powerful layer blending feature to create this

image of a tiny garden fly.

Focusstackedfly

Weshotthistinyflyonthepicnicbenchoutside

ouroffice.Atonly4mmlong,thestacking

processhasreallyhelpedbringoutsome

fantasticdetails,whichwouldhavebeenhard

toseeusingjustaconventionalsingleimage

Allimages©DavidSouthard,WildArenaLtd

Whatyou’llneed

FocusingBracketingability

Macrolens

Adobe Photoshop