In-Camera Focus Stacking

Cool beans!

Yep, I said it. Cool beans. This feature is quite handy when you want to photograph with a macro lens and show some incredible depth of field in your image.

The 4K Photo Mode in the Lumix GX85 and the G85 called Post Focus which allows you to choose the frame with the focus where you want it, after the shot, also allows you to focus stack the images together to enhance the depth of field. One downside to using this method is that we are pulling stills from the video which means there is 8MP worth of file size with which to work. A file of this size will get you to a 20-inch print with no problem, but if you want to go bigger, you’ll need to use a different method. I’ll share that with you in the next day or so.

Let’s take a look.

green bug single frameI call this Green Bug. This image is a single frame grab from the 4K video. Printable and OK. But let’s see something a little better.

Now let’s take a look at the image after all the images in the stack have been combined to show the sharpest parts of each frame in the video.

green bug focus stackedCheck out the detail throughout the photo now.

green bug comparisonHere’s a little zoom in on the back leg of my friend the Green Bug.

Click Here to see the original video clip

This video image was captured with the Lumix GX85 with a 45mm f2.8 macro lens.

Tomorrow I’ll take a look at the Focus Bracketing feature that allows us to bypass the video and capture full-size images.

Yours in Creative Photography,          Bob