Varies by feature
Focus Bracketing
Capture multiple focus planes and combine details from a static scene.
Prerequisites
- iOS, Metal and a physical lens with manual focus and exposure/white balance locking
- Static scene and a supported device or tripod
- Not available on virtual cameras, Android or web
Set the range and count
- Select Focus Bracketing in Image Stacking.
- Drag both handles on the Near → Far scale and check each focus in the preview.
- Tap both handles to confirm the limits on the camera. The orange segment indicates the range.
- Choose 3 to 20 photos on the dial; the default is 10.
- Shoot and keep the camera and subject still throughout the sequence.
What the scale represents
The scale is a normalized lens position. It does not measure distance in meters or f/ aperture. Choose limits based on observed sharpness in the nearest and farthest subject planes.
Changing camera, lens or zoom invalidates the limits and requires reconfirming them. The chosen count remains for the session. More photos increase work; they do not guarantee better results if there is movement.
How the image is composed
The camera stabilizes and locks exposure and white balance. The sequence includes both limits and evenly distributes intermediate positions. Each photo waits for focus confirmation; orientation is frozen.
The center photo is the reference. The engine registers the others, calculates sharper regions and blends them using masks and a five-level Laplacian pyramid in linear space. Cropping uses the valid intersection and may reduce the framing.
When the sequence fails
Any missing photo or invalid registration causes the entire sequence to fail; this mode does not deliver a degraded result. The crop must preserve at least 65% of the reference width and height.
Focus wait is limited to four seconds; capture to twenty seconds. Cancellation is also checked during these waits. There is no 3D reconstruction or local motion compensation. People, leaves in the wind and unsupported macro photography may cause problems.
Result and recovery
Only the composition goes to the effects and saving queue. The copy without effects is also the composition, without LUT, grain or halation; temporary sources are deleted. Metadata records limits, count and confirmed focus positions.
On completion or cancellation, focus returns to the panel position. Turning the mode off returns controls to automatic. Check the next capture and source cleanup when testing interruptions.