So... I have been wanting to try this for awhile. What have I been wanting to try you ask? Focus stacking. A method of increasing the area of a picture that is in focus, by combining multiple individual photos focused on different parts of the image into one image.
Who cares you say? Me. And a few friends. I am just as interested in selective focus on a single part of an image as the next guy. That is why I have lenses like my DA* 55mm f1.4 which can give me a VERY thin slice of a photo in focus and blur the rest especially when set to f1.4 (or wide open). In Macro photography, due to how lenses work and how close you are getting to your subject, even if you stop your lens down to f11 or f16 you are still going to get just part of the subject in focus.
Because of that some clever chap decided to find a way to combine, or stack, parts of different images into a single image that shows only the in focus parts of the image. So, if you take enough photos with the focus point just shifting slightly between each photo, you can get a picture of something close up but have the WHOLE THING in focus.
Here are just three of the 9 images I used for my first stack.
This one has the leading edge of the flower in perfect focus, but the rest of the flower is not even though the lens was stopped down to f8.
Here the focus is further in.
And here the focus is on the rear petals of the sunflower.
And here is the finished product, nicely stacked, blended and in focus.
I have a way to go in mastering this technique, but I hope to get quite facile with it, when needed.
Here is the source of my knowledge so far: https://photographylife.com/how-to-focus-stack-images
