How to focus stack and HDR in one image (Easy way)

Do you want to get pin sharp photos every time with the amazing dynamic range? Use this technique as it is really easy.

NIKON GEAR (Main STILLS camera)

FILM GEAR

OTHER PHOTO GEAR

[Valentascream]

That was a great tutorial thanks Nigel, very best wishes.

[peterrogers]

HDR first! I've been pondering that for a couple of days. Thanks.

[rogerwalton]

Very well explained and a super print to finish with!

[daelpixphotography]

Useful video. Thank using Squarespace for a year now. Love it

[simonmiles]

This is OK, but if you have Helicon Focus it will focus stack a set of unprocessed raw files and output a .dng file. Stack one set for your sky, one set for the foreground. You then have two focus stacked raw files, one for highlights and one for shadows. You just open these in Lightroom or ACR and merge to HDR in the usual way, giving you a single raw file all ready to process as normal. At no point do you have to process any of the intermediate files or faff about with with .tif files or layers.. It’s a really quick, easy workflow. Helicon also does a much better job focus stacking as it uses depth mapping.

[davidmichael]

Hey, I remember there was a time when people won't use the HDR and rather do the exposure blending in photoshop. The reason was that the colours would look rellay strange on HDR. Did lightroom change that? The colours on your photo looks pretty good for me!

[garrygeorge]

Nigel thanks for sharing your workflow in the field. I’m wondering why you prefer to capture your focus brackets first, then go back and ‘guess’ where to focus for your other exposure bracket(s).

I would have thought you would grab your exposures at each focus.

[saintjug]

Great video makes it look reasonably simple. One question though how do you deal with movement in part of the scene for example if the grass in the foreground was blowing about.?

[chrishall]

Thanks for a very useful video Nigel; I’ve recently been merging photos exposed for the sky and foreground in PS using luminosity masks, but yours is a simpler process. Things become a little more complicated if you need to eliminate flares by blotting out the sun with your thumb/finger. Perhaps you could do a future video where the sun is in shot and you need to deal with flares as well as focus and exposure blending.

[shooterntx]

THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! This was the missing piece of the puzzle for me. Bracketing each of the focus areas and blending them! I am so excited to learn this. Seriously thank you. I can’t wait to get out in the field… like this evening. Btw your channel is a favorite and although I’ve never commented, I seriously appreciate what you are sharing… for free. I hope to do a workshop one day.

[DanielSextonHorizonDigital]

This is one of your BEST videos. Very clear without getting too techie THANK

[danieldowns]

I so want elevate my photography up a few levels to create printable photos. Think watching this just shows how much foresight needs to be considered before you press the shutter. Must buy a printer too 😂 Cheers Nigel as alway 💯📸

[billz]

I have a headache, think of get it.
I believe your saying to exposure bracket each focus spot EXACTLY the same - Yes?
Then Blend EACH exactly the same.
Then focus stack those images.
Did I get it?

[michaelklym]

Why is blending the exposure brackets before the focus brackets better than blending the focus brackets before the exposure brackets?

[thedubwhisperer]

Please please PLEASE - Aitch D R, not 'haitch'. I quickly had to cease watching what was proving to be a really useful video...

[Keith-nb]

Thanks for a simple and super easy to understand video Nigel! I have been using exposure bracketing and merging to HDR for a while, but focus stacking was on my "to do" list. Your clear and concise video has given me the confidence to tackle this by revealing that it's actually not that complicated. Much appreciated! Until next

[George-ptph]

Everything worked until I exported my DNG files to photoshop and nothing worked after that?

[jpdj]

As you, Nigel, focus on "post" that is greatly appreciated.
Something that is easily overlooked in the forest of Nikon menu functions that sometimes feel to cumulatively explode, I suggest to try as follows.
(1) set the camera's exposure metering to "highlight-weighted"
(2) set Auto Bracketing to AE bracketing, Number of shots to +3F and Increment to 2.

What (1) does is compare the EV measured by each of the 46 million or so photosites. This is business as usual - what the camera does with each frame it builds in the eVF, when shooting an image or for each frame in recording video. And the camera builds a histogram from that continuous "scan" that visualizes how many photosites measure total blackness, or total whiteness relative to exposure and dynamic range. Knowing from this which (where in the frame) the brightest metering photosites are, the camera now sets exposure for that photosite to become "white" - that is a digital integer number of 16, 384 in a 14 bits depth raw file. (Yes, I know, because of the Bayer architecture, the camera can only measure red, green and blue - not white, but that's a deep detail.) Place the sun directly in the image and the camera will ignore it as "too bright".
It's a pity that there are no options with the "highlight-weighted" metering because having tiny spots of exceptional brightness - like the twinkles in backlit rippled water surface of a lake in your landscape - may be far apart and we may not need these to have gradation conserved between and in them. I use exposure compensation to manage this.
Which is to say that tiny highlights can force exposure down. Consequently these shots look between 2 and 4 stops under-exposed in Lightroom. Well, the good news is that there is zero detail loss in the highlights. The consequence may be that the blackest areas in these shots lose detail or become grainy, or both. Even with 15 EV dynamic range in a Z 7ii or Z 9, you don't want to lose any quality. BTW, how grainy the details might become is much more a matter of your post processing software doing a good job than your camera doing bad.

So now (2) the Auto Bracketing is set to 3 shots that takes one at the measured reference exposure and takes two additional shots that overexpose by two stops relative to each other. Note the + in the +3F that forces the bracketing into overexposure (i.e. detail recovery in the blacks) only. The opposite is -3F but we do not want that as highlight metering never wants/needs under-exposure. The increment of 2 EV is gut feeling based on experience with highlight weighted metering. (Leave the + or - sign with the increment away and the camera brackets both over and under in one sequence. And we do not want that either in "highlight weighted" metering.)

[danieldowns]

I so want elevate my photography up a few levels to create printable photos. Think watching this just shows how much foresight needs to be considered before you press the shutter. Must buy a printer too 😂 Cheers Nigel as alway 💯📸

[jamesss]

This is good thanks, but what if for example your close 1st shot is of water with ND filter then 2nd and 3rd are exposed accordingly ~ will this work in post just the same [ sorry, but I hope you know what I'm asking 🥴]??