How to do focus stacking with Sony A7?

Question

It seems that software like helicon remote or EOS utility which allow you to pick focus points remotely make focus stacking so much easier.

I couldn't find anything like that with Sony A7. Even's sony's remote camera app doesn't have such a feature and it turns out helicon remote only supports canon and nikon.

So my question is if I want to do focus stacking in software with Sony A7 is my best option to focus manually with the lens ring or is there a software which will make it super easy like Helicon remote or EOS utility.

Answer 1

Unfortunately Sony does not give external software access to the focusing. That´s why none of the available software solutions like Helicon Remote supports Sony Cameras.

One option to get stacks that you can combine using a software like Helicon or Zerene Stacker would be a hardware solution for the focus shift. Instead of using external software to move the focus point of the camera, you move the camera at a fixed focus using a setup like Stackshot. This can be controlled by both Helicon or Zerene Stacker. This is quite a bit more costly than the pure software solution and was my main reason to go Nikon instead of Sony for my DSLR.

Answer 2

Have you considered Photoshop? I don't know how "super easy" you need it to be, but it's quite easy in Photoshop.

Open Adobe Photoshop, go to File -> Automate -> Photomerge.

After Photoshop automatically adds all of your photos on each of their own layers, you then select all layers, and go to Edit -> Auto Blend Layers -> Stack Images.

A few clicks, but basically Photoshop will do all the work for you.