How I FOCUS STACK for Perfectly SHARP Landscape Photos

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In this week’s episode, we discuss how to focus stack for perfectly sharp landscape photos. One of the most common struggles when using a wide angle lens for landscape photography is trying to get your entire scene in perfectly sharp focus from the foreground to the mid-ground and all the way out to the background. The main issue here is when you focus on something in your foreground and your background ends up out of focus, then you focus on your background and your foreground ends up out of focus - so what do you do?

In this video, we review a simple yet super powerful technique for landscape photography called Focus Stacking. If you’re not familiar with what focus stacking is, it’s the process of taking a series of photographs with each photo focused at a different area of your composition. Then during your post processing work flow you blend the images together only using the areas of greatest focus from each photo creating a final image that's perfectly sharp and in focus throughout the entire image. I know it sounds a bit complicated, but I promise at the end of this video it will make perfect sense and you’ll feel confident enough to begin testing it yourself on your own landscape photos.

I hope the next time you're on location and faced with a challenging composition to capture in complete focus that you'll try the Focus Stacking process in this video. Once you test it out a couple times I think you'll quickly become comfortable with this powerful technique and begin using it more often then you would have ever imagined.

If you enjoyed this video, please consider giving it a thumbs up and let me know what you think in the comments below - I guarantee I'll get back to ya.

Thanks for watching everyone!

-Mark D.

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[miguelsuarez]

Some people are just naturally born teachers.... you are definitely one of them, Awesome job! 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼

[Belas_Photography]

@4:00 The alternative to covering the lens with your hand is to use Lightroom's by capture time that will stack images captured in a series together in one group. This can make things much simpler when you return from shooting dozens-hundreds of images for stacking. I use both techniques on a regular basis. Cheers, and thanks for this excellent video.

[robertschirato]

As a beginner I thought that I could take one photo to get all areas of interest in focus in one take, you have just made my life so much easier and now will be able to enjoy my photography even more. Wonderfully presented in a manner that you can understand and follow along easily, thank you Mark.

[jenniferkeegan]

I wish I could give you an infinite amount of likes for this, I was exhausted and trying to focus stack pictures and I just couldn't figure it out (even though I have done it a couple of times before I'm still a complete newbie and my head wasn't cooperating at all). I was so frustrated I nearly just deleted everything, decided to give YouTube a go and found this video. I can not believe how easy it is when done this way and I can't believe I've wasted so much time trying to do it manually, THANK YOU! You made my day!

[StacheEsq]

Without a doubt one of the most helpful photographers on Youtube. You always knock it out of the park, Mark. Really appreciate what you do to help those of us still learning the art.

[Petsclubforu]

I can’t beilive how much I’ve learned during 1 week of watching your videos.
I’m absolutely obsessed with your teachings.

[williamcharlesworth]

Mark, you are one of the best, if not the best, teachers. Have learned so much from you. Easy to listen to, easy to follow, easy to understand. All indicators of someone who is comfortable with the subject end explaining each of the elements involved. I look for your videos all the time. Thanks for sharing and teaching. Bill.

[Fazimoto]

*moves over cactus part of image* "as you can see it is completely sharp"

[ilesmic]

Great Job on this video-- please do the manual focus stacking video--

[chrisdunham]

What drew me to your video was the Superstition Mountains. They are in my backyard and one of the most frustrating to capture. Very rarely does everything come together. Light, cloudy sky, foreground etc. What keeps me here enjoying is the content of your videos. Well done and keep 'em coming.

[christopherallred]

One of the best videos explaining focus stacking that I have seen. Simple and concise. Well done Mark!

[margueritemoore]

You are so articulate, Mark. You make a seemingly complex topic so easy. Yes, please do a video on manual stacking.

[petercseke]

1. The change in composition due to refocusing is called focus breathing, and most lenses suffer more or less of this, unless we are talking about much more expensive cine lenses.
2. The biggest challenges in focus stacking are to resolve the focus breathing and scenes with moving elements (wind can also affect branches, clouds, etc), without introducing artifacts.
3. This is specialized software can do better job than Photoshop. I am using Helicon, and it has several stacking algorithms that can be fine-tuned.
4. The lowest the number of photos, the less problems during blending.
5. f/16 is however too narrow, most lenses already suffer from diffraction at that aperture, I would use something closer to the sweet spot of the lens (f/8 or even wider), even with the risk of having to blend more photos.
6. I would take a second series with narrow aperture as backup in case the blending of the first series produces too many artifacts.

[dashtechnical]

Thank you for not just covering the post-processing part of the technique but also for taking time to talk about how you set up the shot and capture the images. Very helpful!

[TheMoodyPhotographer]

The idea of putting your hand is really helpful 😅 when I forget to do that, I look like an aged grandfather looking so close into the screen trying to know which is the first photo and which is the last 😆
Thanks for sharing that ✌🏻👍🏻

[shanesmithphotography]

I love how you give your instructions on how to achieve the lesson you are showing. Your calmness and more importantly unbiased way of creating the finished result. I've NEVER heard you say "This is the way to do this or that" You ALWAYS say "I prefer it to do it this way but there isnt a wrong or right way to do it" I have to admit though I've found myself following YOUR way to create a certain look on most of my photographic work. So once AGAIN, I great appreciate the time and effort you put into making these VERY educational videos 👍🇦🇺


PS: I'd love to watch a video and learn about manual focus stacking if its no trouble for you mate! 👌🏻

[TravelFoodHealth]

I definitely want to try focus stacking but after years of doing landscapes, I like to use different methods of emphasizing something in the image. Light, contrast, colors and composition are key, but so is what you have in focus and what is not sharp. Out of focus areas can help direct attention to what you want in the photograph to emphasize that is sharp.

[iantaylor]

Thank you for all the professional tutorials your do Mark. I find your videos to be some of the best content in tutorials; from the content you post, the nice speed you explain, the lack of distractions and noises, video quality, and you have amazing hair! Kudos!

[flicks]

Great tip on using your hand as a marker for the focus stack series! The wife and I are going to White Sands NP soon and I’ll be putting this technique to work there, I think.

I’d enjoy seeing your process for manual focus stacking, please and thank you.

[sebastienlecalvez]

Man, I started watching you when you had hundreds of followers and struggling to see if you could make any money. Now look at you! You deserve every follower of all those 100k+. You’re content is great. Very inspiring to see. Proof that hard work and perseverance pays off.