First attempt at a Focus Stack

While rebuilding my PC today, I stumbled across a photography technique I hadn’t heard of before.  It is called focus stacking.  It works like this… you take a series of photographs with identical settings, except that you change the focus slightly each time.  The technique is used to extend your depth of field, particularly in macro photography.

This photo is my first attempt at doing it.  It is a very crude attempt and really I should have used more than three images for it.  The first image had Sue Richards (invisible girl) in focus, the second had Reed Richard (Mr Fantastic) and Jonny Storm (Human Torch) in focus and the third image had Ben Grim (the Thing) in focus.  The completed image isn’t perfect (note that Sues hair is out of focus) but it proves the technique.

If you want to try the technique out the free software can be downloaded from:

http://hadleyweb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/CZM/combinezm.htm

and a tutorial can be found here:

http://www.digitalgrin.com/showthread.php?t=61316