I focus stack frequently so I was excited to see this new feature. However, it’s implementation is a little cumbersome and is time consuming enough to make it less useful.
Unless I’m missing something, it requires manual focus, so probably meaning live view (which means mainly for cmos backs). A little time consuming. My dream focus stacking feature (which seems easy in my mind to implement in any autofocus camera but I haven’t seen it done) would be to autofocus on the near or far point, confirm, then autofocus on the far point, and confirm. then set total exposures and possibly even turn on a “safety” feature which would capture one additional shot slight closer and further than your two points. compose the shot, and shoot the sequence.
I realize for macro work the current setup is probably more useful since autofocus isn’t very useful shooting macro focus stacks, but wondering if there are more people shooting landscape than macro, and those shooting serious macro are using automatic rails to move the camera. I think what I described would be useful to more. (IMHO)
Maybe when my new back arrives with CMOS live view I’ll try it more , but right now with the IQ3 80 I”m not sure I’ll bother. My current method works pretty good ...auto focus on the far point, note where the lens has positioned itself, autofocus the near point, move the ring to manual focus, compose and start shooting the sequence, moving focus in appropriate increments until I”m at or one shot past where the lens positioned itself when autofocusing the far point. If the far point is infinity (as it is with most of my work) I skip the first step, just autofocus the near point, and shoot the sequence to infinity, judging how many shots by how close the near point is.
One other thing I found, when shooting the sequence the camera doesn’t automatically lock the mirror up (which seem illogical, no reason for it to drop down). You can get around this by moving back to the main screen after setting up your 3 parameters, locking the mirror up, then moving back the focus stack tool and triggering the sequence.
Kudos to Phase for working on adding tools to the camera. Personally I find the Phase interface pretty simple (shoot with a sony for a while and you’ll want to slit your wrists ) and certainly most of the time I’m just in manual mode adjusting f stop and shutter speeds like I have for 40 years, but I do find occasion to use some of the tools, and the learning curve isn’t very steep.