An exercise to see how good a result I could achieve in focus stacking some images, hand-held without a tripod.
The technique chosen using Auto ISO, with Aperture Priority set at f22, at a fixed 64mm focal length was to use Auto-Focus and half-depress the shutter to focus on immediate foreground, then move focus point, half-depress again move back to frame and fully depress the shutter to get the five shots (above) to work from.
It was clear that two of the images produced the closest framing …
… so these were chosen and cropped to the right-hand side of the frame.
Then having chosen those two images in LrC – Library > Photo > Open as Layers in Ps was selected.
Over in Ps the two layers were selected and Edit > Auto-Align; then Edit > Auto-Blend; and finally Edit > Save as … were chosen which then returned the image to LrC as a TIFF file – remembering to save the image as a 8-bit flattened TIFF to reduce the filesize.
Lastly in LrC, I chose Library > Convert photo to DNG … [remembering to uncheck “Only convert Raw files”, and probably check “Delete originals after successful conversion” (again to save space)].
The end result …
Ooh, train!
Yes Simon – train! I’ve also got several to share with you from Steamtown as we passed it at Carnforth.
Very impressive and a good subject for this treatment. I’d better join your U3A courses to update my knowledge.
Alternatively you could join us at Sandsend this September and we could spend a few hours avoiding the crowds. We could even try this out on the NYMR.
And for Simon’s benefit – we might be able to fit him in for a night – one of the residents of Sandsend has a huge model railway in his garden which he opens on Saturdays to the public every couple of weeks or so and shows off to parties at other times. A group came from Switzerland last year with their own engines and rolling stock. He even has a token system to avoid multiple trains on the same track. All steam GWR except for one loco!