Sony Tech - A quick guide to Focus Stacking with the A7RV

[@malaranu6883]

Thank you, your video was to the point. A novice like me understood. Can you help with the tracking function. Can you also help with the custom buttons. Thank you.

[@RedCathedral]

So very glad it helped you. In the video & article about the A7RV menu you can see how I set my custom buttons: tinyurl.com/A7RVmenu That might be a baseline for you to start with .. eventhough I sometimes change the setup (of all my cameras) when new needs or possibilities arise. About tracking: what are the problems you seem to run into?

[@starskymedia]

Thanks for the simple instructions. Can you explain why you chose to do focus stack for this shot? Would have been nice if you compared the focus stacked shot vs a single shot taken at F14 or something, cheers!

[@RedCathedral]

Thanks Michael. Interesting question. A 70-200 or 135 at f14 with plenty of spacing between the subject and background would have given a similar effect. However, as you could see in the overview of the set-up, space was limited and a 50mm + subject close the backdrop were the only options. In such a case f14 would make the background less out of focus (and thus more distracting) than I intended it. The stacking combined with a large aperture provided me the option to have the subject completely in focus and still have the background naturally blurred due to the shallow dof of f2

[@starskymedia]

@@RedCathedral hey thanks for the detailed reply, makes sense! Look forward to seeing more videos, cheers

[@veselinvasilev9362]

Thank you!

[@RedCathedral]

I'm glad it helped you 🙏

[@cgambarrotti]

Great video! Have a question. The la-ae4 doesn’t allow the camera to give you a preview of what the final photo will look like when using flash when using Sony a7II. Do you know if the la-ae5 provides that preview of exposure when using flash with the a7IV ? Thanks in advance. Will wait for your response.

[@RedCathedral]

Thx! :-) In older cameras like A7II or even A7III liveview only shows exposure/color effects and only has an on/off option. On the more recent cameras like the A7IV there is a special setting in the menu which you can see here: flic.kr/p/2p8xyig This shows the liveview results of exposure + expected flash. Since I have the LA-EA5 mounted on the A6700 ATM I quickly put a flash on top and tested it. It seemed to do a rather decent job in liveview even with the adapter. BTW. Yes the screencap is from the A6700, but it will be in the same menu tab in the A7IV, A7RV, ZV-E1,.. I hope this was of some help to you.

[@ohhimark8028]

how do you know how deep your focal plane is and how many shots/focus increments to take?

[@RedCathedral]

That's something you learn by trial and error and will be completely different for every genre of subjects. Here you see 1 video from the helmet but I did 2 more before getting it the way I actually wanted. finetuning the settings each time. Once you do it a few times and certainly if you use it often in the same kind of situation/set-up you'll find out what works best for you. On top of that: for the helmet-shot with the limited space available I used the lens wide open but ideally I should have used the lens around f4 for optimal sharpness. So that would have again changed the number of shots needed. I would advise: start with a medium number for the increments & 10 shots as a baseline. See how this works for the subject you're shooting and adapt from there to your taste.

[@carlossantini]

You did used electronic shutter right? thxs

[@RedCathedral]

Actually if I remember right I used the mechanical shutter (because at 1st I wanted to use a small strobe instead of only continuous light)

[@carlossantini]

@@RedCathedral If I understand correctly, in macro with the a7rv it's no recommended to used elect. shutter with strobes?

[@RedCathedral]

@@carlossantini I admit to not having tried it yet. Yet with strobes mechanical shutter is recommended.

[@carlossantini]

@@RedCathedral Just checked the manual, When [Silent Mode] is set to [On], the following functions are not available: Flash shooting Long Exposure NR e-Front Curtain Shut. BULB shooting

[@ADNZ5442]

Which lens did you use for stacking?

[@RedCathedral]

The helmet I did with the 50mm f1.2 GM full open (for reason explained underneath another question).. and yes I know that this lens is way sharper at f2.8 and peaks at f4.. but admit that the idea of making a product shot at f1.2 is pretty insane. You can do stacking with any E-mount lens (even with an APS-C lens for stacked 26mp images)

[@Scotphotoamateur]

I do think Sony could have implemented it better. For example touch on the front focus point touch on the back focus point and then let the camera do it all. The guesswork for width and number of shots is a bit frustrating given the very clever sophisticated software and hardware inside.

[@RedCathedral]

You are 100% correct. It is often way too much guesswork. Normally the camera stops the stacking process once it decides it has all in focus.. but your way could be easier & more reliable. The soft- + hardware inside can most definitely support such way of working. Let us hope a Sony engineer reads & implements this.