'Focus stacking' for Landscape

[r_scott_adams]

<p>When using wide lenses, there is often not much of an advantage in focus stacking for landscape work. Hyperfocal distance will almost always cover from near foreground to infinity at a usable aperture.<br /> On the other hand, I'm fond of landscape detail images and often shoot with longer lenses. When looking at details in landscapes our eyes shift focus in a fluid sort of way and the "mental image" is one of great DOF. If you shoot this same scene with a longer lens, that kind of depth is unavailable even at minimum aperture (F32 on a FF camera for most longer lenses).<br /> Here's an example of a five shot focus stack, shot at F/8 @ 200 mm with a Sony a900 FF. I like being able to "see in this way" with my camera. Helicon Focus was used to stack the images. <br /> Mariposa Grove, Yosemite:<br /> <img src="http://rsadams.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Landscapes/i-h6QPWcw/0/X2/stacked-trees-X2.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p> </p>

[robert_k1]

<blockquote>

<p>I have not found any topic on photo.net very illuminating on the subject.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Here's a PN article and comments about macro stacking. Technique and challenges are similar for landscape.</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/learn/macro/focus/stacking/harold-davis/</p>

[mike_cowlishaw]

<p>Some good thoughts here .. something I want to experiment with for low-light situations (dusk, underground, etc.), where "Why not stop down to get more depth of field?" isn't an option.<br>

Any more recent pointers/insights? Unlike macro photos, moving the camera to change the plane of focus isn't really an option, I think? I would also like to extract the 3D information for modelling and/or 3D pair generation if practicable.</p>

<p>Mike</p>

[stp]

<p>My problem is focus stacking in a landscape with moving clouds. I'm still looking for a solution.</p>

[stp]

<p>And I found it. I simply delete the skies in all of the stacked layers except the last one. It's a bit tricky to get the deleted background to be "empty" instead of just white, but I found a way and the final image looks great.</p>