focus stacking for landscape

Just curious to see how many here focus stack their landscape images.
Right now I'm using zone focusing with my X100s as it has a digital focus scale and I know that at f11 or f16 at 7.7ft everything will be in focus BUT it is still not as sharp as actually focusing to the right distance.
So right now I'm thinking of doing focus stacking instead for ultimate sharpeness

here's some landscape shots using zone focusing

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/itaemo/93893308​48/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/itaemo/93865624​55/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/itaemo/93865630​03/

I've considered doing it, but I usually decide to save time and just shoot at f/16.

Love the first one...Those are definitely sharp!...how many exposures did you stack?

I checked out your flicker link, lots of nice images!

plantastic wrote in post #16170548
Love the first one...Those are definitely sharp!...how many exposures did you stack?

I checked out your flicker link, lots of nice images!

thanks, none of those were focus stacked but I think I'm going to start doing it now and see how the two compares.

I have played around with it a couple times, but still a newb myself.

I have come to the conclusion that it is something that I will consider using if I have a foreground element that is really close or if I am unable to stop down enough to get the DOF i want (trying to maintain a shutter speed or keep my ISO relatively low). The downside to the stacking is it adds another level of complexity to your workflow and can be a PITA to blend on some images. On the other hand the blending is super simple for other images.

why not use a tripod and stop down to the limit and use slow shutter to compensate?

not to be sarcastic, i just wanna know why. what's the advantage?

That's an interesting question. In my limited experience, stacking for focus can be very useful for macro and extreme tele but I've never heard of it being used for landscape.

i know, right? heard of it in macro only because the DOF is so thin.

vinmunoz wrote in post #16173384
why not use a tripod and stop down to the limit and use slow shutter to compensate?

not to be sarcastic, i just wanna know why. what's the advantage?

Because hyperfocal is everything in "acceptable" focus, plus some softness from diffraction. If you focus stack, you can have everything in even better focus, and even sharper by using f5.6-8 instead of 11-16. Downside is time in the field and in PP and having to fiddle with the lens.

thanks. I will try that. so you have to manual focus every exposure or you can use auto focus and just move the focus point.

how many exposures is the best for landscape focus stacking?

You can MF or AF, I prefer MF since you can better control how much you nudge the focus. I'm not sure on the number of exposures since I don't do it! I would guess 3-5, although I'm also quite sure you could get away with just 2.

There are a few reasons to use focus stacking for landscapes. Better iq when shooting stopped down is one reason. If your printing your pictures big I'm sure the stacking improves iq, but probably not so much if your just posting on the web.

Needing a DOF that exceeds what you can get with your desired settings is the big reason it's used though. The "with your desired settings" part is key.

Say your shooting some wildflowers and there is a slight breeze. F/16 may give you your DOF, but you you have a polarizer on which is sucking two stops of light, you bumped your ISO up a bit (or maybe you don't want to bump it up), and you need a relatively long shutter speed to get your desired exposure. Lets say the shutter speed came out to be 1/30 second. The problem is that 1/30 sec is long enough that the breeze can blow around the flowers quite a bit during the exposure. One solution would be to focus stack; opening up by two stops will allow you to use a 1/120 sec exposure which may be fast enough to freeze the blowing flowers.

If your shooting seascapes you may run into a similar situation where you need sufficient DOF, but also need to use an exact shutter speed to capture the perfect ammount of blur in the wave motion. Focus stacking could be a solution in this scenario as well.

The number of shots needed and where to focus is different for every image. There is deffinately a learning curve for focus stacking, but its not a steep curve at all.

Thank you very much Robert. That's is well explain. Hope my question help others who are just lurking and reading too.

now I'm curious, the flower and wave scenarios above would result in two or three very different images if you shoot for stacking, can the software deal with this or would one have to pretty much look at each flower and wave by itself? I'd think the later would be an editing nightmare? I've used stacking in macro, where nothing moves, I think in the above examples I'd rather deal with noise and push ISO up a bit?

phantelope wrote in post #16176810
now I'm curious, the flower and wave scenarios above would result in two or three very different images if you shoot for stacking, can the software deal with this or would one have to pretty much look at each flower and wave by itself? I'd think the later would be an editing nightmare? I've used stacking in macro, where nothing moves, I think in the above examples I'd rather deal with noise and push ISO up a bit?

It can take me up to 30 hours to put together focus stacked images with movement and high compression from longer focal lengths. It has to be done entirely by hand when you get to a certain advanced stage of focus stacking landscapes.

I was never able to find any info on how to do this online, so I had to develop my own techniques to make it work. I'll be creating some tutorials on my method this fall and winter, as I have some really solid ways of getting it done after so much trial and error.

Only do it if you need extreme range in DOF or need to print large with the sharpest f stop from the lens which is usually 5.6-8 for wide angle lenses. Most landscapes are fine being shot at f16-22 if you don't wish to deal with the nightmare.

Another reason to probably avoid focus stacking landscapes is that your focal length can change drastically between focusing near the lens and near infinity. If you need 16mm from a 16-35, a extreme focus stack will kill a bit of your field of view in the final image output.