Originally posted by slip Thanks
I think I should have explained myself better on why I thought it might be a good idea...By taking a few shots with micro changes in focus would decrease the chances of missing focus on the eyes (and other important parts of the face)
Cheers
Randy
That does explain it better although that is not focused stacking. Most of the time I have seen focused stacking used on macro shots. When used on macro shots you usually have a relatively inanimate object and have to manually change the focus in between. You could in theory still do this with a portrait but you would have the problem of holding the person still. You could hold their head still using a method like the use to use in the old daguerreotype photos. They would have a brace behind the subject that they would rest their head against. They would do this because of the longer exposure times. These longer exposure times also resulted in what we would now perceive as unusual facial expressions. If you look at some of these old photos you see that they are not smiling and have various “serious expressions”. This would not be in the style of the more modern portrait.
In my opinion trying to obtain a very narrow depth of field is much overrated. Not only is it often over done but can distract from the goals of the photo and can more often than not lead to losing the entire photo. Most of the time in things like portraits you’re trying to capture a very elusive fleeting moment. Even 2 photos taken just a second apart can have very different expressions. One expression could be golden in the very next it could be lead.
A narrow depth of field is a flaw in the syntax of the photographic systems we generally use. This flaw can be used artistically and thus can have an advantage. It is essentially nothing more than the destruction of information. The destruction of this information can be done at any time in the photographic process. If the destruction of this information takes place in the early part of the photographic process as in when the image is captured, then this information is forever lost. This loss of fleeting information is one of the biggest drawbacks to using an extremely narrow depth of field in something like portraits.
If the destruction of the information takes place late in the entire photographic process it is then much more controllable. A narrow depth of field is one of those things that is relatively easy to simulate in the modern post processing system. Simulating a narrow depth of field in prose processing gives you much more control with essentially no permanent loss of information. Usually what works best is a combination of the 2. A moderate amount of narrow depth of field at the time the photo was taken followed by a small addition in post processing. This can mostly eliminate the potential of losing the best photo out of the bunch.
DAZ