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Arsenal 1 Getting Started with Focus Stacking
Arsenal 1 Getting Started with Focus Stacking

Increase sharpness in high depth of field shots by taking and merging multiple photos at different focus positions.

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Written by Arsenal
Updated over a week ago

Arsenal’s Focus Stacking feature combines multiple images set at different focus distances to produce a final image that has more depth of field than any of the component images.

Get Ready to Shoot a Focus Stack

Before shooting, always make sure that:

  • Camera is powered on

  • Arsenal is powered on

  • Camera is connected via USB cable to Arsenal’s left port (for most cameras)

  • Camera is in aperture priority mode

Starting the Focus Stack

Set the Arsenal app to either Smart or Manual mode. If you want Arsenal to choose all of the settings, select Smart or if you prefer to control the ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and EV select Manual.

Tap the Option Button to the left of the shutter button.

At the screen with the stacking/blending options, tap the middle icon for a focus stack.

Set the desired number of shots for the focus stack. Swipe down on the Focus Stacking settings screen when done to return to the main screen.

Switch to the Focus screen

A prerequisite to shooting a focus stack is going to the focus screen to set the near and far focusing points. The focus screen can be accessed by tapping the square focus icon in the upper right corner of the app to change from Single Point Focus to Multi-Point Focus.

Tap the Multi-Point option and select a near and far focus point in your image. The yellow square focusing icon will turn green when focus has been achieved. Arsenal will control your lens to measure the distance of each focus point. It will then calculate the optimal focal position for the maximum sharpness of those points and set the lens to that distance. The formula Arsenal uses is a modified version of the hyper-focal distance formula.

Once you have set the focusing points, tap the return arrow in the upper left corner of the screen to return to the main screen.

Now you are ready to shoot the Focus Stack.

Tap the circular shutter button.

Note: Depending on the distance between the focus points and the number of shots chosen, a message may appear recommending changing the number of shots. Dismiss the warning to continue or tap the icon with the stacking options to change the number of shots for the stack.

View and Share your Focus Stack

When Arsenal is finished processing the stacked image, a thumbnail preview will appear in the lower right corner of the app. You can identify the completed stacked image by the Focus Stack icon that appears in the lower-left corner of the thumbnail. Tap the thumbnail to see a larger version. Click the share button to save or share your completed stacked image. To save your stacked merged photo to your phone
automatically, navigate to the Settings screen and turn on the “Save to Phone” feature and select “Stacks”.


Please note: The completed stacked image that Arsenal creates is cached in temp storage and displayed in the Arsenal Gallery in the app. We recommend automatically saving stacks to your phone or sharing/saving the image from the Arsenal gallery once the stack has been completed.

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