Focus Stacking in the Field: What Actually Works (and What to Do When It Doesn't)

Focus Stacking in the Field: What Actually Works (and What to Do When It Doesn't)

I shot a composition last fall out near Smith Rock that had everything going for it. Golden light, a foreground of frost-rimmed volcanic rock about eighteen inches from my lens, ridgeline in the distance catching the first clean rays of the day. I stopped down to f/16, took the shot, and called it good. Back at my desk, I had a soft foreground. The kind of soft that lives in your recycle bin inside of twenty seconds.