Greenguy33 Loc: Rhode Island

What is involved in shooting macro's and shooting several shots with a different focal point and stacking the photo's?
It sounds like a very time consuming process. What kind of software program do you need?

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Manual focus, (best to use magnified live view) and change your focus point from front to back in increments, or vice versa and then stack the shots in Photoshop, or use a dedicated program. It's really pretty simple.

Greenguy33 Loc: Rhode Island

Can this be done in Lightroom?

Allen Hirsch Loc: Oakland, CA

No - LR can't do layers/merging, which is what stacking requires.

Greenguy33 Loc: Rhode Island

Is there a less expensive dedicated program for this process?

Allen Hirsch Loc: Oakland, CA

If you're just going to do this as a one time deal, you can get a trial Creative Cloud Photoshop use for 30 days for free.

I'm not familiar with the dedicated stacking programs.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

There are several on the market, one is Zerene Stacker and it's a nice program (still have it on my computer), but I personally prefer Photoshop.

dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMiKUnVAFks

Focus stacking software: Free

http://www.heliconsoft.com/

Ziza Loc: USA

Here is one.

http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconsoft-products/helicon-focus/

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

Although not specifically dedicated to stacking, GIMP does do layers and it's a totally free (and quite competent) image editor.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

It is not all that hard, you just have to work carefully and slowly. Your 60mm micro Nikkor is probably ideal. To me a tripod is required. Manual everything of course. As the other person pointed out. Photoshop is a straight forward way of doing it. It can not be done with Lightroom. Though you can adjust the final image to your liking with it later.

I have been experimenting with "macro focus stacking" myself and have done it a few times. I most recently bought a focusing rail to get really precise movements, but have not actually used it yet.

This is only a theory of mine, but I think focus stacking might work better with a lens that has internal focusing and does not extend way out as you focus thru the object. Many Nikon lenses have that type of focus. My Pentax macro lenses do not. So I feel I might get better results by leaving the lens at a focus say to the front of the subject and shoot through it by making many exposures moving the rail in between each. But surprisingly I got it to work OK with refocusing the lens each exposure. For say a inch deep subject I might make 12 to 18 exposures. By-the-way, don't stop the lens way down at all for this technique as you don't want diffraction from small apertures "blurring" your stacked image. If you want to PM me I can walk you through it the next time I set up to do a focus stack and review the Ps method.

Neither Lr or PSE can be used but there are other programs on the market. A popular one is Helicon Focus. Google "Focus Stacking" you will find information on technique and software.

Greenguy33 Loc: Rhode Island

Thanks lamiaceae and everyone else for the helpful posts.

What is a good aperture opening for this process?

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

Stop on over at the Macro forum/ http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-102-1.html here on the hog, several of us stack. I personally use Zerene stacking software. User friendly and gives the best results.

Greenguy33 Loc: Rhode Island

thanks fstop22, I will check it out.

lighthouse Loc: No Fixed Abode

I have never stacked a true macro image so take my comments for what you think they are worth.
All the upper level stuff I have read, says that you do not adjust your focus, you should adjust your camera to subject distance instead.
A train of thought also echoed by the best macro photographer I have met. He uses a Canon MP-E 65mm for his up coming book on some tiny type of bugs he is studying.