I wanted to share a post to show an example of how a stacking error would look like and how the stacking error could be fixed during the post production process.
As I was capturing the "eye" of this daisy, my setup experienced some accidental "rocking" movement , so a couple of frames were very slightly mis-aligned.
Screenshot at 90% magnification to show stacking errors (after Photoshop Stacking process)
Screenshot at 90% magnification to show the "corrected" version
To correct the above stacking error, the layers HAD to go through an AUTO-ALIGN process first before stacking.
The Final image shown below created by 39 stacked shots shown below
Lens used : 60mm f2.8 micro Nikkor
No. of Images : 39
Focus Step Width : 5
Lens apertured used : f5.6
Time taken to stack statistics
Import 39 JPEG FINE images into Photoshop as layers : 2 min.
Auto-Align (to correct mis-alignment) : 7 min
Auto-Blend (stacking process) : 20 min
Final touch-up : 5 min.
TOTAL Time taken : 34 minutes.
Screenshot to show how crisp the details are at 100% for the stacked image
Same flower captured at an aperture of f45 which has so much DOF extending out to the front and side petals. Diffraction though has affected the crispness of the details which can't be seen as clearly unless we pixel peep a little.
Screenshot to show the details are at 100% for the same Daisy captured with an aperture of f45
So pretty clear that at f45 the crispness can be compared to the stacked image where the individual capture used was captured with an aperture of f5.6
So a few important things to take note when using Focus Shift
- Only do it in a wind-less environment
- Tripod setup needs to be solid with no movement where possible
- If very slight movement was encountered while capturing the stacked sequence images, make sure the ENTIRE sequence of images to be used for stacking goes through an AUTO-ALIGN process first before going through the stacking process.
Alright, till the next blog, Happy Shooting.