Photo How To

If you’ve ever tried your hand at macro photography, you know that precise focusing is of the utmost importance. That’s because there’s a very narrow zone of sharpness when shooting close-up photos at high magnifications.

The typical approach is to select a point of focus within the frame, and accept the fact that portions of the image will get softer and softer the further away they are from the point at which you focused. But what if you wanted to create a macro photo with total depth of field, from near to far? Read on.

David Bergman is a pro specializing in celebrity and sports photography, and in the two-minute video below he demonstrates a simple focus staking technique that delivers striking macro images with maximum depth of field.

The trick is to shoot multiple images of your subject—each with a different point of focus. Once you’ve done that, it’s a simple matter to automatically combine the shots in Photoshop for a final image with the WOW factor. You’ll want to use a tripod to keep the initial images in register, and Bergman explains the best exposure settings to use.

There are more interesting tutorials on the AdoramaTV YouTube channel. And be sure to check out another Bergman video we posted, in which he demonstrates why a cheap lens hood is the most important accessory you can use.