By Steve Genesin.
Breakaways
By Steve Genesin
Olympus E-M1 Mark ll; 12-100mm lens; 1/160s; f/11; ISO 100
The Kanku-Breakaways has some iconic ranges of hills just out of Coober Pedy in South Australia. They are deep in colour and offer an opportunity to capture some stunning landscape images. On this occasion I framed a local wildflower in the shot, using focus stacking to try and have everything as sharp as possible.
Don’s response
This is a beautiful example of the focus-stacking technique being applied thoughtfully. Were it not for the wildflowers in the foreground, the image would be much less interesting. Instead, what we have is the story of those green stems and creamy flowers contrasting with a stark and forbidding landscape.
Holding focus across a range that extends from a few centimetres in front of your lens to infinity can’t be accomplished in a single exposure. As photographer Steve Genesin notes, one needs to take a sequence of images, each of which has a different plane of optimal focus.
Steve’s Olympus E-M1 has the capability to create the necessary focus stack in-camera, which is pretty handy when you’re in the field.
Happily, as long as you’ve taken a sequence with successive focus changes, the effect can also be created in post-production.
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