One of the major challenges I have always faced when attempting to shoot Gigapixel photos using telephoto lenses is capturing nearby objects in focus. As I discussed in my 2017 blog post “Using the Promote Control with Gigapan Epic Pro to Create Focus Stacked Gigapixel Panoramas” a typical telephoto lens has a Hyper Focal distance that will be hundreds of yards from your camera. For a detailed discussion about Hyper Focal Distance please see that blog page. https://abbascreationsphotography.com/Blog_Gigapixel_Panoramas.htm
In order to capture an image, using a telephoto lens that is totally in focus from as near as a few feet to a mountain range that may be 20 or 30 miles away requires the use of focus bracketing to assure good focus. Depending on the focal length of your lens along with the f-stop used, anywhere from 8 to 10 shots to 100 shots or more may be required. Even a moderately telephoto focal length of 70mm @ f-11 has Hyper Focal Distance (HFD) of 48.9’. As illustrated in Fig. 1, focusing to the HFD maximizes the focal range from near to far that is “acceptably in focus”. If you focus on object 48.9’ from camera everything from 24.5’ to infinity will be “acceptably in focus”. Objects closer than 24.5’ will not be in focus. Good composition calls for interesting foreground subjects to be in sharp focus.
In past years when using a Promote Control, I managed over the years to capture a few focus bracketed stitched panoramic shots. The amount of time required to shoot several hundred to a few thousand shots needed to yield a 1 Gigapixel or larger image proved to be far too time consuming to be practical. The Promote Control was simply too slow. In a typical sunrise or sunset situation the window of time which the light is ideal only lasts about 5 minutes. Then in 2018 the company that sold the Promote Control went out of business.
I attempted to use my laptop computer tethered to my Canon 5DSR camera but the combination of slow performance and the burden of carrying a laptop into the field just didn’t seem practical. I also tried using an app in my Sony A7R2. That too proved to be too slow and very limited in the number of focus steps. As a result, for several years, I rarely attempted to do focus bracketed Gigapixel images.
Enter the Canon R5. In mid 2020 Canon announced the R5 and R6 cameras. Based on the initial reviews of these new cameras I wasn’t very interested. It wasn’t until several months later while reading yet another review of the R5 that I learned that it reportedly had focus bracketing built into its firmware. That fact seemed to be Canon’s best kept secret. To this day Canon’s R5 webpage makes no mention of focus bracketing in the specifications.
By November 2020, a few people had done YouTube videos and reviews about the R5’s focus bracketing capability. However these first articles stated that the R5 only worked with a handful of the new RF lenses which didn’t excite me. Due to the fact that I already owned several EF lenses, I wasn’t keen on the idea of having to buy a new expensive RF lens just to get focus bracketing capability. I eventually tracked down a page on Canon’s website listing the compatible lens for the R5. Sadly, Canon hasn’t updated that list since 09/04/2020. https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART177430
Disappointedly, I didn’t find any of my EF lenses on the list. My go to lenses for doing my Gigapixel photos are my EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS USM and EF 300mm f/4 IS USM. Even worse, the early information seemed to indicate that non- Canon EF-RF adapters would not work in focus bracketing mode. In late 2020 genuine Canon adapters were on a 6 month backorder.
Finally in Dec. 2020 I was on the phone with an online camera sales site’s tech support person asking questions about focus bracketing using the R5. The tech support tech told me that “most EF lenses would work with the focus bracketing mode”. He also suggested that an aftermarket Viltrox adapter would work just fine and he had them in stock. He even offered me a 30 free return on both the camera and the adapter if when I got them I found that my EF lens would not work with them. So, with that information I made the decision to place my order.
When the camera and adapter arrived I immediately tried it with the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS USM. I set the camera to do a focus bracketed set and set the zoom to 200mm. Mounted on a tripod, I framed a flower on one of our house plants, set the focus to the nearest part of the flower and pressed the shutter. Over about a 2 second period of time the lens made some funny noises and everything went silent. At that point I thought oh shoot, that didn’t work. But upon review of the photos take, I found that I had a nicely spaced set of focus bracketed images. What was amazing and made me very excited was the speed at which it shot the set of images. What would have taken upwards of a minute or more with the Promote Control only took 2-3 seconds. That really excited me.
I then mounted the EF 300mm f/4 IS USM lens and repeated the same experiment. It worked too! Only difference was it shot numerous additional photos which is expected with the longer focal length of the 300mm lens. Using the 300mm lens it can shoot from the nearest focal distance to infinity in about 8 seconds. This same sequence would have likely taken 5 minutes with the Promote Control.
I then tried both of the above lenses with my Canon 2X converter. While I rarely use the 2X converter I wanted to see if it would work. It did not work. I then tried my Sigma 150-600mm f/f5.6 Contemporary lens. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it worked ok. However, beyond about 400mm there is too much focus breathing for subjects closer than about 50 feet. Still not bad for focal length where the Hyperfocal Distance is 1545 ft. This past October, 2022 I successfully shot this 2.4 Gigapixel panorama with the Sigma 150-600mm lens at 400mm. https://abbascreationsphotography.com/Flatirons_Fallcolors.htm
For detailed instruction on how to set your R5 to Focus Bracketing see this page on Canon’s website. https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART178282
