rhudston Loc: Nova Scotia

I've been wandering in the wilderness trying to set up focus bracketing on a Fuji X-T30. I've read the manual, but it gives no real information at all. What are the rules for "frame" and "step"? How do I shoot a landscape scene to get a nearby piece of grass in focus and then have the focus bracketing step up to focus on the trees in the far distance? The manual seems to imply that the focus bracketing will step up to infinity, but I am not getting that result with 10 frames at 5 steps. What exactly IS a step? I'm also experimenting with macro photography and I'm looking at focus stacking, but I'm not sure what camera settings I should be using to get a suitable series of focused shots.

Peterfiore Loc: Where DR goes south

A quick google search brings this up from Fuji...I hope this helps.

https://fujifilm-x.com/en-us/stories/advanced-month-5-focusing-20-focus-bracketing/

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

With the proper lens and knowledge of hyper focal distance you don’t need focus stacking to get the near and far in focus in a landscape shot.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Not entirely true. It’ll be sharp at the hyperfocal distance and get less sharp as you get closer to each end of the focal range. In many instances it will still be acceptably sharp throughout, not always though. That being said, for landscapes 3-5 images is usually more than sufficient. Macro is a different story. I’ve used as many as 300 images in a stack.

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

Peterfiore presumably has it.
>But cameras that do focus bracketing generally use "steps" of focus bracketing, which is an number that is proportional to how much the focus changes for each picture. A small number means tiny focus changes, so lots of pictures are taken to focus thru a scene. This is done at wider apertures, so very shallow depth of field and appropriate for macro work where the scene is millimeters deep. A larger number means larger focus steps. This is appropriate for wider apertures, so greater depth of field and is appropriate for close up photography where you don't want to take a zillion pictures to get thru a scene that is several inches deep.
>You can continue taking pictures out to infinity if your lens permits it (not all macro lenses do).
>Of course the big question is 'what do those step numbers mean in terms of amount of focus change? Is it 1/2 millimeter per picture? 5 millimeters? How many pictures do I need to take to focus bracket thru a given scene? And the answer is it depends on the lens, and it depends on the scale of the scene. You just have to accept that you won't really know until you calibrate things.

I have a similar set-up, where I can focus bracket thru a macro or close-up scene, and I use 'steps'. What I had to do was calibrate my system so I'd know later what to do for a given situation. This involved setting up the camera on a tripod in a controlled setting, without vibrations, and then focusing on something up close that had lots of detail and it was viewed at a steep angle so that only a narrow part was in focus and the rest quickly faded into non-focus. I think I used a dollar bill. I set the camera to a wider aperture that gave maximum sharpness for my lens (f/6), but this is very shallow depth of focus for that lens. I tried different step sizes. Very small step sizes were too small, where the focused areas in each picture extensively overlapped each other. It would require lots of unnecessary pictures to get thru a scene.
Considerably larger step sizes (something like 50x larger step sizes) were too large. There were unfocused areas between each picture.

>One of our major contributors has a post that clearly illustrates this very issue: https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-456907-1.html

>By experiment, I found an optimal step size for that lens and aperture where the focused areas overlapped but only a little. I could focus bracket thru a scene with a minimal # of pictures. When I found that, I wrote it down, and I keep it where I can always find it. What that step size is does not matter for you, since your values can easily be different.
> I repeated this for wider apertures, since I do want to also do close up focus bracketing of larger subjects. This soon took less time b/c I quickly caught on to how much I'd need to change the step size for successive apertures.

> Your camera also has the Frames setting. This is where you tell it how many pictures to take. I'm not sure what to say about that except that if the number of frames falls short of what you need, you probably could simply do another run from where you left off. If 50 frames wasn't enough. Do another 50.

> A common follow-up question is where one asks: How many pictures will I need to take to focus bracket thru this scene? The answer is: You don't need to know. Just start taking pictures a little in front of the scene, and continue taking them until you've focused past the scene. From time to time just check the viewfinder or lcd screen to see where you are. Once you see that you are thru the scene, that's when you stop pressing the shutter.

rhudston Loc: Nova Scotia

Thank you. Bozsik's post is excellent as is his photography. I especially liked the image of the beetle at the end of the article. Something to aim for.

rhudston Loc: Nova Scotia

Thank you. I had seen that article already and it does help, but it does not really explain much about steps. This morning I shot some small flowers; I set the camera for 50 frames at 5 steps with a 45mm lens and a 16mm macro tube, but the camera only took 25 frames. What I have read seems to imply that the camera will keep adjusting focus until it reaches infinity, but the articles seem to also imply that you need an adequate number of frames for the size of the step to reach infinity, but I can't seem to find anything to identify what a 'step' actually is. I'm guessing the camera stops changing focus when it reaches the end of its ability to focus with a macro tube but that didn't seem to happen when I shot a landscape scene without a macro tube - the final shot was not in focus in the far distance (to be fair, I tried this on a misty morning over our river, so I may need to try again in clear air). Anyhow, it is interesting trying to figure it out, and for a hobby that's at least half the battle. I see more posts down below so I'll keep reading.

jackm1943 Loc: Omaha, Nebraska

It's probably easier just to do it manually. You don't need more than three shots, one as close as possible, one mid distance (around a third of the way to the far end), and one at the far end for landscapes. You can probably do that manually far more quickly and easier than trying to program the camera to do it all.

rhudston Loc: Nova Scotia

I agree. With a sufficiently small aperture I can get the shot acceptably sharp at the hyperfocal length, but that is not what I was trying to do. The conditions at the moment were soon to be gone and I didn't have a tripod. I wanted the head of a tall wild grass about two feet in front of me in crisp focus, and then I wanted the middle ground in soft focus and the far ground in crisp focus. I used to be able to do this with a split focus filter on a film camera but now I'm playing with digital. Two frames in focus bracketing would have done it, but I haven't yet figured out how to make that happen the way I want it to.

rhudston Loc: Nova Scotia

Thank you - an excellent answer that outlines exactly what I feared I might have to do. You are correct: sometimes the science of knowing exactly must give way to the art of just working at it until you get it right.

rhudston Loc: Nova Scotia

In the long run this may prove to be the only way. My only problem here is that even with a tripod I seem to move the camera enough while making adjustments that the images don't stack very well. I had hoped with bracketing and with the time interval set to 0 seconds I would be able to get differently focused shots without moving the camera.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Let me say that I do not have a Fuji camera but I have Olympus cameras with focus bracketing. I previously posted a document on using focus bracketing for macro-photography using the Olympus 60mm lens.
( https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-623714-1.html ). Some of the small details may differ for your camera but I am sure the process is similar. Olympus also posted a discussion on focus bracketing for landscapes.

https://learnandsupport.getolympus.com/learn-center/photography-tips/landscapes-nature/using-focus-bracketing-and-stacking-in-landscape?utm_content=petertipcta&utm_campaign=2020_03_Focus_Stacking_US&utm_kxconfid=t5ljhtrz5&utm_source=email_ettips&utm_medium=email&sfmc_sub=203456726

The process appears to be similar on your Fuji camera. The working parameters are the step size and the number of steps. It is true that these steps are not well defined but I suspect these are focus motor steps and do not strictly relate to a specific distance interval. You will need to do a few experiments to use this feature effectively. The focus motors appear to be a type of stepper motors.

On the Olympus camera the step sizes are 1 through 10 and the number of steps is 2 to 999. I cannot imagine using 999. If you set too many steps the sequence will stop when infinity focus is reached.

If the step size is too large your focus stacked image will be unsatisfactory as portions of the image will not be in focus in any of the images. If it is small you will need to use more steps but otherwise no harm is done.

Small step sizes are very good for macro and larger ones for landscape.

If you are shooting landscapes if you choose too few steps you will not get to infinity focus.

You might find it handy to take a shot with your finger in the frame before and after the sequence for focus bracketed shots.

I hope you will find thus useful.

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

From what I understand that you are trying to do, it will help immensely if you have a tripod or at least a monopod, and also very still conditions. As in an early morning before the breezes have stirred up.
You can do quick stacks, with a small number of frames, by simply turning the focus ring a little. Do several 'runs', and attempt the stack with picture frames that line up the best. There will be artifacts with this method because of movements, but these can be patched up later. A stacking program like Zerene Stacker has tools for selecting which bits of the original picture goes into the stacked picture. But those tools can't do everything although it can do basic fixes are very quickly and it requires no particular skill. Then there are more powerful programs like Photoshop or Gimp (Gimp being free), which provide cloning and healing brushes that can do fancier corrections. Here is an example, taken from a few pictures by simply turning the focus ring. There were artifacts that remained, where parts of the wings did not line up. But those were corrected in Gimp by cutting and pasting them into alignment, and then using cloning and healing brushes to conceal my work.
Best to view in download.

(Download)

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Your lens indeed reached what it thinks is infinity focus. Of course, this is not really infinity as your lens is on an extension tube.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Indeed it is not easier to do this manually. Understanding how to focus bracket on your camera allows one shutter press to take the sequence in a blink of an eye provided the shutter speed is sufficient. Even slow moving subjects can be captured.