Macro Focus Stacking Guide

Before getting into the main guide Its very important we fresh our memories on a few characteristics of photography as they play a critical role in the Macro focus stacking process.

Focus stacking is a method used where you take multiple images with different focus planes across your subject, this is commonly used in landscape & close-up photography. This allows you to get the whole image in focus even when using a lens setup with a narrow depth of field (DOF).

What is DOF?

Depth of field is the plane of a photo where the focus is ‘acceptably’ sharp, a deep DOF means lots of the image is in focus in the case of landscape photography this might mean the foreground, subject & background are all sharp. A shallow DOF means this acceptably sharp area of the image is very narrow, this method can be great at isolating a subject and drawing the viewers’ attention to a specific aspect of the shot.

How can we control our DOF?

We have 3 main ways of controlling DOF in our photos, these are aperture, focal length & subject distance.

Aperture is used to control the amount of light passing though a lens using a diaphragm, by reducing the size of the diaphragm (Confusingly increasing the aperture value) the potential paths of light passing through the lens is reduced increasing the DOF, this also reduces the amount of light exiting the lens towards the sensor. Some examples would be

o   F2.8, More light exits the lens, more potential paths for light to take results in a smaller DOF.

o   F8, less light exits the lens, less potential paths for light to take resulting in a wider DOF.

Focal Length determines the magnification factor of the image and is measured from the point of convergence to the sensor in mm. Smaller focal lengths result in wider angle of view & long focal lengths result in a narrower angle of view.