Focus Stacking

[port perran]

Focus Stacking is very much in vogue at the moment and is something that I've been seriously considering.
However, I've decided against it after very careful consideration.
It just seems that with everything in focus, the actual focus of the photograph is lost.
I prefer the more natural approach where the main subject is in focus (and hence becomes the focus of the photograph) rather than my eye searching for the focal point and hence wandering over the picture not sure where to rest.
I've nothing at all against focus stacking and love some of the fantastic work which has been shared on here but for me, it doesn't quite seem to quite work.
Everyone to their own.
Our eyes tend to focus on something with the background becoming blurred or irrelevant.
With focus stacking I find my eyes wandering over the photo looking for a focal point.
Is it an artistic approach v technical perfection?
Just my thoughts.
I wonder what others think?

Cheers
Martin

[Nbodger]

Martin,

I think it is horses for courses and depends what you a shooting.

If you take a close up of say a model locomotive on the angle there will be a point we're you loose the focus, possibly 50% of the shot or more, so by taking two maybe three photo's you can get the image you are shooting in focus, still with the background out of focus.

I am in both camps fully in focus and just the image in focus as I say it depend what you want to shoot and artistically what the photographer wishes to achieve.

It is certainly more pertinent to close ups unless you have a good range of f settings on your camera

Mike H 

[ntpntpntp]

Personally I like as much of a photo as possible to be in focus. For me it's not about being artistic, the image is conveying information and I like to see all the detail.

[keithbythe sea]

Hmmm, very interesting and thought provoking.

You raise some excellent points.

I had written a very long rambling reply (too much wine with dinner) which I have thankfully compressed to:

"I agree, not for me either."

When more lucid I'll post a more detailed reply.

[chrism]

I think it depends upon what you want from the photograph. If you want to recreate in a photo of a model what you would get with the real thing then you do need lots of depth of field - which is related to the focal length of the lens used, the aperture and the focussed distance. Depth of field using the same lens and aperture is far greater when focussed many tens or hundreds of feet away than  it is when focussed only a few feet away.

[Leon]

Is it an artistic approach v technical perfection?
Just my thoughts.
I wonder what others think?

I was considering photo stacking before the new conversation started. When I take a photograph of my whole layout, I want everything in focus, and that is achieved to a very large degree with my Nikon (and even my smart phone) on auto. Some of my sectional images I'd like to feature everything, but because the camera is closer to the subject only the focal point is sharp. My intention in taking the photograph is not to feature my handiwork (it's gosh awful) but to give the viewer a clear view of what has been achieved - good and bad - and what remains to be done. I've not been able to achieve my objective, however, and can only obtain the results I want by either using my camera setttings, instead of the auto, or by stacking. It seems possible that the basic photographic suggestions I've received from lil chris may help me to accomplish what I want. If not, I've found an android app (open source) that may enable me to do it with my smart phone via stacking (using just three images).

I do agree with Martin that most photographs don't require clarity of background. Wide angle photography for the purpose of enabling the viewer to examine with some precision every point on the image has it's place, though. To reprise, if I photograph the station area I want everything to be sharply defined - not just the station.

Leon

[lil chris]

I agree with a lot of the points raised here people tend to forget the world is not all in focus just where you are looking your eye adjusts the same has a camera, that's what I believe anyway. If you want to just take simple nice pictures just use a standard focal length lens not wide angle or telephoto and keep your aperture has small as possible, so you need good lighting on the subject and most of the subject will be in focus. I might try stacking some time when I get round to it, but I am happy with my pictures has they are to be honest.

[Bealman]

A very interesting discussion. I actually had never heard of photo stacking until I read about it in Roger's Wrenton thread.

It works well with Wrenton because of the detail of the village in the background of the railway shots. However, I believe there is most definitely a case for the subject being in focus and the background being fuzzy. As already noted, it depends on the effect the photographer is trying to achieve.

Let's face it, photo stacking didn't exist before digital photography came along!

Some of the best pics I ever took were portraits, back in the 35mm days, using a telephoto lens, with the background extremely out of focus.

[Paul J]

Depth of field is something where railway photography is different to even quite similar genres (such as photos of racecars).

Usually with action shots, you want the focus to be on the object without distraction meaning the background would be out of focus. This not favoured by railway photographers (except for panned shots). This often leads to sneering from general photography enthusiasts but that ignores that trains are long objects going into the distance which means that depth of field is necessary.

I haven't tried photo-stacking, but I can see it would be useful for model shots because depth of field doesn't scale. The possible depth of field is much shallower for objects close up.

For model shots, I like to use plenty of light and as narrow an aperture as possible to get depth of field. This usually means a tripod and an exposure of around 2-3 seconds. A wider angle lense also gives greater depth. This is where a compact camera with a small sensor comes in handy as it crops the wide angle view. This means you get the depth of field of a wide angle with less of a "fish eye" effect.