I’ve written about focus stacking with specialist software and macro rails. But what if you don’t have access to those, or perhaps you just want to try focus stacking before spending any more money? You can try to focus stack by hand and then use Luminar Neo’s Focus Stacking to bring it all together.
What gear do you need?
Keep it basic; I’m sure you have plenty of this stuff in your kit and just laying around
- Camera and lens (obviously): I used a 90mm macro lens, but you could even use a 50mm or 300mm zoomed-in as close as you can
- Tripod or something to hold your camera steady
- Clamp to hold your flower (or if it has a long stem, a glass or vase to hold it upright)
- Black fabric or paper for your background — This is optional
- Light, natural or artificial. You could use a speedlight, flash or even a desk lamp. I used the Lume Cube Tube Light Mini.
- Your subject matter is totally up to you to use whatever you have on hand.
How to do it
I set my Sony a7RIII and 90mm macro lens on a tripod. I placed some black fabric on some board. I used a plamp to hold my flower in place. Placed my lighting on either side so it was well-lit. You will need to be in manual focus, but depending on your lighting you can either be in Manual Mode or Aperture Priority mode to take the photos.
I then grabbed my focus on the front of the plant. Try using your peak metering (if you have it) or the cameras’ magnification to check your focus. While still in manual focus slightly twist your focus ring so that the focus point starts to move toward the back of the subject a little at a time. Taking a single image at each focus point. This may take a little bit of practice, so be patient.
Depending on how close you are, the size of the subject and how much you twisted your focus ring, you should end up with at least 5-15 images (at a guess) to focus stack with. As for camera settings, you can set your aperture to anywhere from f/2.8 to f/11. As you are on a tripod it doesn’t matter how slow your shutter speed is, but if less than 1/80 second try a 2-second timer between images so there is no camera shake. Be careful not to move your camera while twisting the focus ring.
How to use the software
Once you’ve taken your photos, simply load them into Luminar Neo. Then, drag and drop the images into the Focus Stacking extension. If you don’t have it installed yet, click on the puzzle piece icon and install the extension update. Next, set some parameters. I check the Auto Align (just in case there is a slight movement) and Chromatic Aberration Removal. Then click “Stack”. It will take a few minutes and then appear in a new Stacked Images Folder (on the left). You can then edit the final image as you wish.
Final image
As you can see from the below image I have detail and focus from the very front of the plant all the way through to the tips at the back. Never easier with Luminar Neo’s Focus Stacking.
