21 Photos Focus Stacked: 5D Mk IV – EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II – Einstein Studio Light – 1/125, f/5.6, ISO 100

Last day of January with a big snowstorm on the way! They are saying we could get over a foot of snow with heavy blowing and drifting – I suspect the next few photos of the day will be weather related! However, today we revisit Focus Stacking. The last time I did this was on a lasagna in a pan. I got to looking at the top of my desk and realized that might make for a better opportunity to explain focus stacking. On my desk top are a number of items that I have collected over my life and career.

These items are separated by about 3 feet from front to back. Using a Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L II lens set to 100mm provides for a very narrow depth of field when the front of the lens is about 3 ft away from the front of the desk. I also used a single Einstein studio light with an umbrella to spread the light. Look at the two photos below; you can see the difference where the first picture I took is focused on the desk front, and the last picture I took is focused on the wall in back. Notice how neither picture is totally focused?

So I took 21 separate photos. Each photo had a separate focal point. I used a tripod and a shutter release, and manually focused each shot. I then took those photos and put them in Photoshop as layers. I aligned and blended them and saved as a .psb large document format file due to the size. I imported this file into Lightroom where I then processed it much like I would a raw file. The result is the photo of the day seen above – an HDR image!

By the way, there is a blooper in the Photo of the Day. See if you can find it.