Turn the opacity up again and look through all layers to ensure they are aligned well enough. To stabilize both camera and subject, I will hold the stem of a plant between my fingers and rest the lens on either my wrist or the gap between index finger and thumb. A good technique to avoid this is to hold on to your subject (or their home, if your subject is an insect) with the hand that’s not holding the camera. If the subject moves between frames, you will have to start over. Although we made sure this won’t affect the image quality thanks to the high shutter speed and flash, it can still interfere with our focus stack. Most subjects in nature are subject to motion blur unless you are lucky and it is windless. Lying flat on the ground is not always possible, but it is the most stable position to shoot in. I use only my neck to push the camera through the zone of focus, trying my best to move on that one single axis. Then I hold the camera firmly against my face with both hands to hold it steady. If the subject is low and the ground is dry, I will lie down and rest my arms on the ground. I typically kneel down or lean against a tree (if possible) and hold my elbows close to my body or rest them on my knees. To ensure this doesn’t happen, use your body as a tripod. ![]() Stabilizing your body is the key to handheld focus stacking. Shifting the perspective too much within a stack will ruin it. If the buffer fills up or the flash needs to recharge, hold your breath and try not to move the camera or your body until your gear is ready again. Ideally, the camera moves on only one axis: back and forth.Īs we slowly move the camera through the zone of focus, we hold the shutter button down and take as many shots as possible. In order to create a stack that is easy to merge, we need to align the single frames as perfectly as possible. ![]() Performing a handheld focus stack is all about a physically stable body position. If you dislike black backgrounds, you can use a larger light modifier to shine some light on the background and try to find a composition with a background that is either close to your subject or has a lot of natural light, such as the sky or sun-lit foliage. The camera should be set to the sync-speed of your camera, typically 1/200th or 1/250th of a second. Ideally, the flash power should be set to 1/16th or lower to keep its recharging time short-an external battery pack that holds eight additional batteries helps with this. All ambient light should be cancelled out as we will move the camera back and forth, so take a test shot without flash and make sure it is black. The flash ensures proper lighting and helps to eliminate motion blur. The typical setup I use for stacking in the field is camera in high-speed continuous mode and an on-camera speedlight with a slim modifier. Of course, it’s ambitious to compete with an actual focusing rail, but with a bit of practice and the right technique, creating a good handheld focus stack becomes a simple task that works well, even at extreme magnification ratios.
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