#OCTIVE PHOTOSTACK HOW TO#
#OCTIVE PHOTOSTACK SOFTWARE#

Composition 3, shot 2: focus = middleground.Composition 3, shot 1: focus = foreground.Composition 2, shot 3: focus = foreground.Composition 2, shot 2: focus = middleground.

Composition 2, shot 1: focus = background.

Composition 1, shot 3: focus = background.

Composition 1, shot 2: focus = middleground.

Composition 1, shot 1: focus = foreground.

Focus SequencingĪ technique I use to gain speed is what I call “variable focus sequencing”. In other words, you need to ensure that the view will not look drastically different from the moment you started, till the time you pressed the shutter button for the 15th time. Being aware of the weather and working as quickly as possible are critical when trying to snap 15 different shots in a short amount of time. This may take a minute or two, depending on how experienced you are and/or how easy it is to use your camera and tripod setup. Going by the example from earlier, let’s say that you need to take 15 shots. Do you have fast changing light? Do you have moving clouds, wind, etc.? The less movement, the better. Thus, it is important to be aware of the weather conditions in the field. However, even with static scenery, conditions in nature can change. For these reasons, you need to attempt this with static scenes. Add focus stacking on top of that, and it becomes nearly impossible. It is very hard to do even ordinary panoramic photography with moving objects.

#OCTIVE PHOTOSTACK HOW TO#

If you already know how to do the above two, now it is time to blend both of these techniques together.įirst, though, a quick note on weather conditions.

How to take ordinary multi-image panoramas.

How to take ordinary focus stacked images.

The background knowledge you need in order to take a focus stacked panoramic image is to understand: Are you starting to see the complexity? What can you do? Keep on reading. That means they have to be blended both horizontally and on top of each other. You will now end up with a total of 15 images. Therefore, for each of the five overlapping images, you have to have three different shots, focused on different parts of the terrain. Now you want to add focus stacking on top of that in order to get a sharp image from front to back. Suppose that you need a total of five overlapping images from a horizontal pan in order to produce the panoramic stitch. You’ll need to pan your camera to take multiple overlapping images in order to produce the panorama. However, if you want to be able to print it really big, having a high-resolution image is important. You could use the technique above and then crop the image.

Now imagine a similar scenario, but this time you want to shoot the leaves and the trees in a 3×1 format panorama. Shooting and processing this image would not be too hard: Meaning, you focus one image on the closest ground leaves, the second on the middle of the forest, and the last on the trees in the back. To keep things simple, also suppose that you can get away with just three shots for a focus stack. Suppose you shoot a landscape of a forest with some leaves in the foreground, trees in the middleground, and more trees in the background. The reason is that the only blending necessary is that of identical shots, with the exception of their area of focus. Challenges with Panoramic Focus StackingĪlthough focus stacking is not easy, it is pretty straightforward when the desired final result will be a single 2×3 image. This article also assumes that you know how to do basic panoramic photography, both in field and photo stitching in post-processing. Thus, the end result is a photograph which is in perfect focus from the closest to the furthest objects.

#OCTIVE PHOTOSTACK SOFTWARE#

Those images are all blended together afterwards with software in order to contain only the sharpest parts of each image. The purpose is to capture multiple shots where some focus on the foreground, others on the middle ground, and yet others on the background of the scene. The only difference among those shots is the focus setting of the lens. However, to recap briefly, focus stacking is the process of photographing the exact same scene with the exact same camera settings with multiple shots. It assumes that you already know how to do that with single-shot photographs.

The purpose of this article is not to explain what focus stacking is and how it is done.

Challenges with Panoramic Focus Stacking.

Octive photostack