Jewelry is a perfect use for focus stacking. Thanks for the comment.

I'm glad you found this video helpful. Thanks for reminding me about the open in feature. It's something I don't use often because it converts everything to a DNG then round-trips it back, which is normally great. I like to have each layer exported with the final stacked images so that I can use the single layers to help fix any imperfections in Photoshop. Good luck photographing the watch.

Yea, my Phase One camera has had it for a long time as well, I'm happy to see it on add to the Sony lineup.

Helicon Remote controls the camera and moves the focus points automatically if your camera doesn’t have built-in focus stacking, like the Sony A7rV or the Canon R5. If your camera has built-in focus stacking, then you only need Helicon Focus, which will combine the already captured photos. If your camera doesn’t have focus stacking, then you will need Helicon Remote to capture and Helicon Focus to combine the images.

@@peter_belanger Oooh, thanks for that! Now this makes a whole lot of sense. Does the remote work with Capture One or does Helicon remote work independently?

@@NAJCaptured Helicon Remote works independently, but you can have the images saved to the same folder as your Capture One session. There is a plug-in for Capture One that will send your selected images over to Helicon Focus to be combined.

Thanks! @@peter_belanger what's the name of the plug-in?

@@NAJCaptured It's made by Helicon. Here is the link. www.heliconsoft.com/capture-one-plugin/

That is a great question. From my experience, it would depend on how macro of a photo it is. The closer you are, the more focus breathing will affect your photo stacking. I expect that I will lose some of the photos edge do to Focus Breathing, so I crop with that in mind. The part that is harder to fix, is the ghosting which happens when stacking the photos due to perspective change. The quick answer is having the correct lens is important in making a flawless photo stack that works on the first try. That being said, I’ve used a wide variety of lenses that aren't good for focus stacking, and I have made them work. Granted, they require more post-production.

Great question. I edited out all the captures, maybe I should have left them in. I only showed the first capture, but the strobe did go off for each of the 36 photos that I took.

It only works when you have zero movement, so that's why it's mostly used in the studio. If the butterfly and the flower have no movement there's a slight chance it could work, but I wouldn't bet on it. A tripod is a must. I've seen photographers who have had luck with landscapes, they manual fix any movement in tress or bushes.

yes it can be done :)

You'll want to do this in Photoshop.

I just posted a video on a Lightroom workflow. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/r92JrZt4ktGZZ6M.html

Thanks for your comment. You can call it what you want, but the new "Focus Bracketing" that Sony added can absolutely be use for focus stacking.

I wish that too. I am glad I didnt upgrade from r3 to r4 and waited a bit more.. I was really jealous for Canon, Nikon and Olympus users to have this possibility. I was hoping Sony wouldnt be so sluggish to add this feature to their cameras. I really would prefer to have focus bracketing than ShiftPixel in r3. Well, planning to get r5 and keep r3 as the backup.

ZereneStacker is a great option to use. I picked Helicon because it's much faster at stacking the images. I have also found that on occasion ZereneStacker changed the lighting of the stacked image, such as taking down highlights in gradations or making a shadow a little darker. No software is perfect, that's why I have more than one, but Helicon is my go to until a stack doesn't work. Helicon is also an Industry standard, so if I'm working with an assistant or a digital tech, they are more likely to know Helicon than ZereneStacker.

I have the original A7r IV with firmware 1.20 and I'm not aware of any internal focus stacking. Let me know where in the menu you see it. What I'm doing is focus stacking, which is what you do when you combine several focus points together to create one sharp image.