Increase depth of field

Maximize the power of your Canon camera and lens with focus stacking

- BRIAN WORLEY

Focus stacking is when you take multiple frames at different focus settings, then extract the sharpest sections out of the images for a photo with maximum depth of field (DoF). While some cameras have focus stacking built-in, here you’ll see how to use Canon’s EOS Utility and DPP software with your current camera.

The challenge of close-up shooting is the limited DoF at those close working distances. Closing your aperture increases DoF, but rarely is it enough. The image quality of your lens also reduces at extreme apertures due to diffraction loss. The solution is to use the focus stacking or depth compositing technique, especially for interiors of static subjects. Each frame is often taken with the lens aperture set for the best image quality, between one and three stops down from the maximum, such as f/16.