The long learning process that actually produces any technique can
perhaps be communicated in a few words. But how do we share
the process? If I had not learned to love and look forward to the
process, to years of focus stacking, I would never have had the
endurance to take the journey that produces whatever results I can
now manage.
In other words, it was because I did not care about the final result
(and a good thing too!) as much as I cared for the process of being
out there photographing that I have managed to learn anything
worthwhile. At least for me it has taken years of process to get any
results worth seeing.
My point is that it might be worthwhile sharing more about the
process we go through in our photography as well as the resulting
photos. Any thoughts or comments?
Focus Stacking: How I Got Started
I have been focus stacking for many years now. It has been a long,
slow learning curve, one during which I have always been trying to
scratch an itch inside me, searching for some kind of photographic
expression that satisfies me and completes whatever I feel is
missing in my vision of photography. I am sure many who are
reading this have something similar going on.
My interest in stacking focus arose, like it has for most who use this
technique, from attempts to achieve greater depth-of-field (DOF),
usually by pushing apertures narrower and narrower, while at the
same time trying to avoid the effects of diffraction. This is, of
course, very difficult to do and IMO often a lesson in futility.
For a long time I switched back and forth between trying to get
greater DOF through a single shot and trying to achieve DOF
through focus stacking. Both are maddening in how close they
come and still how far away from perfect they are. There is no free
lunch. I went back and forth like this for years. I would attempt to
focus stack, like the results, but be frustrated by the artifacts and
imperfections. So I would switch back to traditional one-shot
photography only to have the same experience.
Of course the moment I began to post stacked photos, I was
labeled as that “focus stacker,” often considered a pejorative term.
In reality I was just a photographer experimenting with a new