waterfall photography- focus stacking

[Kamala]

Hi all,

I am trying to get focus stacking working for a few of my waterfall pictures. I have taken 2 shots - 1. long exposure to get continuous flow of water and. 2. a short exposure about 30 seconds to get the leaves in sharp focus that were moving due to wind.

When I do a standard photo stacking, I lose the continuous water flow. I end up with waterfalls that actually was exposed to just 30 seconds. I want to do focus stacking for the foliage but keep the long exposure effect for the water fall. I am trying to google search, but I did not get good results which gave me pointers. Is there a way to somehow stack layers in such a way that I can get foliage in focus and continuous flow (long exposure) of waterfalls?

Appreciate inputs.

Thanks

Kamala

 

[httpwww.photo.netbarry]

Assuming you have Photoshop, do you retain the stack in layers? probably not the best way, but make the slow exposure the background layer and the sharp layer on top. Merge the layers and then use the history brush to erase the waterfall are exposing the blurred waterfall in the background layer.  I'm sure there are better masking and selection techniques but this will give you an idea.

[Kamala]

Thanks very much. I did photo stacking, masking and managed to get the correct exposure and focus. This I think is the best way. It can be quite a tedious at times to get the masking perfect. That is the only catch.

[Robin Smith]

Focus stacking will produce odd effects in leaves if there is wind, so you may be on a hiding to nothing.

[Kamala]

Very true. I saw that while I was closely looking at individual pictures and was experimenting with focus stacking. In any case focus stacking is probably not the answer to shape surroundings and long exposure water flow

[John Crowe]

I do a lot of focus stacking including waterfalls and the most effective way is to shoot with no wind.  I know this is very tough.  It has just occurred to me that perhaps it may be possible through multiple images with multiple focus and multiple shutter speeds it may be possible to clone in the offending leaves in post processing.

[Kamala]

H John,

That can be hard. But I was surprised that there is so much stillness and leaves don't move for 0.5 to 1 second. But that said, since my last waterfall photo trip I have been noticing the blurred foliage. My waterfall photography is in its infancy though. I have tried and worked on stacking. I will have  to with and without stacking and try posting it in this forum.

[paddler4]

Most focus stacking algorithms take sharp pixels from each slice and ignore what is not sharp. So I would expect them to get rid of the smoothed water.

The solution is either to have the same length of exposure for each shot or blend by hand.

 

[Ed_Ingold]

I have tried stitching frames taken in a rapid burst, using Aurora HD. Aurora is intended to stitch cracked exposures together, but works for equal exposures too, and can be set to ignore motion between frames. The effect on a waterfall emulates that of a longer exposure pretty well. It's not the silky-veil effect, but close to that of a 1/4 second exposure.