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FOCUS STACKING with A Nikon D850

Tom Mackie Landscape Photography

46,281 views

Responding to numerous requests for this video, we are pleased to share with you a tutorial on focus stacking with a Nikon D850.

Tom Mackie explains what is focus stacking in landscape photography, when you would use focus stacking and what type of composition best works for creating this type of image.

Focus stacking is known as focus shifting on the Nikon D850 and the camera has a great system to simplify the process. Tom discusses this and shows you the camera settings he uses to create an image. He also discusses focus stacking in Lightroom, focus stacking in Photoshop and other software he has found that works well.

We hope you find this video useful and if you have further questions please do add them into the comments below.

Thanks for watching!

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PHOTOGRAPHY KIT AND EQUIPMENT USED BY TOM:

CAMERA AND LENSES

Nikon D850 Camera

Product

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.8G ED Lens

AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8E ED

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70 - 200 mm f/2.8E FL ED VR Lens

AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/4E PF ED VR

TRIPODS

Tom uses a Gitzo Series 3 GT3542

Gitzo 3382 Ball Head

Gitzo GT 1545T Travel

FILTERS

Kase Wolverine Armour 100mm System
https://kasefilters.com/kase-armour-1...

ACCESSORIES

MIOPS Smart Phone High Speed Remote Trigger Kit

HoodLoupe® Outdoor Loupe for 3.2" LCD Optics and Base

BAGS

Lowepro Pro Runner BP 450 AW II Bag

Lowepro Sac Revolver Top Loader Zoom 75 Aw

#landscapephotography #photography #photographytips
#photography #landscapephotography #nikon

20 Comments

@Mr727db 7 years ago

Best d850 photo stack tutorial I've seen. Well done.

@paulharhen5444 3 years ago

Thanks Tom for demystifying this technique. Just got around to using this feature on my D850 for the first time in a woodland in the New Forest, Hampshire, UK.

@peterlemke3468 7 years ago

Nicely shown and explained Tom thanks. For the benefit of others the two pieces of focus stacking software mentioned were Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus. Note l have no affiliation with either product.

@genemcloud4114 2 years ago

I’ve been thinking about getting a D850 just for this purpose. I like macro photography but it’s a challenge with my D500.
Thanks for a well done video.

@jscook54 7 years ago

Thank you Tom. I think I was one of those folks requesting this lesson.

@ScoTreVan 7 years ago

Thanks Tom, I've used this before, but still nice to have this as a reference.

@mrs.danforth6690 7 years ago

Tom, Can you do a video showing how to do this in post?:

"Focus breathing is a problem with some lenses but if you are using Photoshop to stack the images you can overcome this by aligning the images before you blend them. Photoshop does a good job on this and will resize the various layers as needed to make them align OK.
One tip though...before you blend the images, select all the layers and crop the image slightly to get rid of the transparent pixels at the edges that were introduced with the alignment step because these will cause problems with the blending process if not removed."

@roblawrence3325 7 years ago

Well done Tom Thanks

@mariaeugeniapolson1339 7 years ago

Thank you!

@gm010379 4 years ago

THANKYOU...

@NoriuslSynthShadow 7 years ago

thanks again for sharing your passion with us:-)

@dgibbsfl 6 years ago

I'd like to see more on the post processing. Ring Stacker was mentioned a couple of times and also the ability to edit motion artifacts. It would be nice to learn a little more about that.

@kevlockwood8950 7 years ago

Thanks Tom. I’ve had my D850 since they first came out. I shoot only landscapes, and have tried this feature awhile ago. It works but seems more geared towards macro, or the type of image you were shooting with the huts. Personally I prefer to be in control. Using AF with back button focusing I usually take 3 shots: infinity, a third from bottom of the frame, and finally to closet object to the lens. Works a treat every time.

@casperghst42 7 years ago

Thank you for this, I've been wondering how this was working. 3rd reason to get a D850 ...

@Ron_Boy 7 years ago

Thanks for this, Tom. Amy thoughts or suggestions on choosing an aperture to use? And how does the number of shots taken relate to the aperture chosen? As others have mentioned, doing the actual stacking in post is what's missing here. You mentioned doing it with PS, as well as other programs specific to stacking. Seeing it done would be helpful, since you said you would be doing it in the video.

@MrStanmc 7 years ago

Thanks, that's an excellent and very useful video, not only for Nikon users but for owners of other brand cameras as well.
I own a Fuji X-T3 which has this same feature and while I haven't done a lot of serious work with it yet I have played around with it quite a bit and so far I'm very impressed.
Among Fuji users there's quite a bit of confusion about the effects the Focus Width Step settings make to the number of images captured. From experiments I have done so far this setting has a huge effect on the number of images captured, particularly when using long focal lengths where the natural depth of field is so shallow.
With the X-T3 my experiments seem to indicate that a setting of 10 moves the focus point with each shot by a distance equivalent to the depth of field of the lens at whatever aperture the lens is currently set at. I have found that using a setting towards the higher end, but less than 10 (around 7 or 8) produces the necessary number of images to get a good stack on most occasions but macro shots sometimes require a much lower setting.
You are right about Photoshop. Most times it will produce a usable stack but often needs some manual blending to get the best results. I haven't tried the other software packages.

@nevvanclarke9225 7 years ago

It’s why I’m saving for a d850

@revant147 7 years ago

very helpful , thank you. what if i wanna bracket the focus stacked images, will the camera get the different exposures on all the focus stacked photos?

@ashvarma2486 7 years ago

Many thanks for sharing. Very helpful. 2 questions: have you done AF tune on your lenses to make AF is accurate? Alternatively, would it be possible to focus on 1st point using live view + manual focus and then switch to AF before starting focus stack sequence? Many thanks

@markusstiller9882 7 years ago

Hi Tom, very good explanation of this feature. I have the D850 over one Year now and I really love it. I use this function from time to time. It is much easier than manually. But always keep in mind, don’t shoot to close, leave a bit space around for cropping because the different focuses changes the view a bit. I did this mistake in the beginning. On landscape it is not so important but I also love stairs and staircases and there it really matters. It sucks If you loose the corners especially when you figure it out at the end of stacking and editing.