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Focus Stack @ 33mm: Sunlit Picnic Table in Snow Squall (GFX 50S)
Even at f/11 at 33mm, depth of field is very limited, a confounding issue with medium format, since diffraction rapidly kills image quality past f/11. Hence focus stacking is highly relevant for landscape shooting or tabletop shooting where one wishes for the image to retain reasonably good contrast (which f/16 would destroy) and yet much more depth of field is needed than a single shot can provide.
Here I wanted to see what I could do to make a near-to-far composition under challenging conditions (blowing snow, moving water) with focus stacking. A 2-frame stack was used, which is a strong contender for “best all around and most practical” for field use where there can be movement and/or lighting changes (which are akin to movement). Here, a 2-frame stack at f/11 was just barely enough to provide strong detail from the leading edge of the picnic table to the far distance. The first frame makes most of the picnic table sharp, blurring off at the rear of the table and the 2nd frame makes the medium-far distance sharp, blurring off near the rear of the picnic table.
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Diglloyd Medium Format covers medium format camera systems, including the Hasselblad X1D and Fujifilm GFX.
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GFX 50S + Fujifilm GF 32-64mm f/4 R LM WR @ 27.3mm equiv (33.2mm)
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