u/octopec

Legend :)

For those of you who have never tried focus stacking - it's really fun :) The photos above are pretty shallow stacks (<10 photos) taken with the A1 II + 70-200 F/4 II with the 1.4 teleconverter (at f/8; could have gone with smaller aperture). The idea is to move the focus plane slightly for each photo, then stack the photos afterwards - I used Helicon Focus - to get the entire subject in focus while maintaining an out-of-focus foreground and background. In this case I simply put the camera on my foot, in manual focus, and turned the focus ring while shooting at 10 frames per second. The other common method for hand-held stacking is moving the camera slightly back and forth while not touching the focus ring; this generally works better for smaller subjects/higher magnification.

These photos are not great, and I didn't spend more than a minute or so "editing" - just wanted to showcase what can rather easily be done. You don't need a lens that does high magnification (although it helps) - any lens and camera will do, but it helps if the minimum focus distance is short.

Happy shooting!

Spotted and managed to capture, only a few meters away, this curious wood warbler today. The light hit just the head as it was sitting on a dark branch.