There an option available on my Canon 5D Mark IV that I’ve been wanting to work with and that is an in-camera Multiple Exposures image stacking. Similar to creating an Bracketed sequence of images for exposure, what the camera does is take a series of images and stacks them together for a final result. Keeping the original images, you can still work with them when getting home.
Unlike the HDR/Bracketing option, the third image is saved in RAW format, where the HDR/Bracketed image is saves as a JPEG file. You can capture two to nine images that are merged. Click here for more details on how to set the Multiple Exposure setting with Canon Camera bodies.
For this idea, what I wanted to try was taking one image with the scene out of focus, then the second image in focus. Here is my first image captured.
Then the second image that was in focus was this one:
The final result is the image shown at the beginning of this post. Along with the Multiple Exposure feature used to create the final image, I also had added a new filter to my 100-400mm Lens which is a Diffusing filter from Tiffen which is a warm center Spot Filter. This is a super fun filter and fairly affordable. It gives a lovely soft effect to floral photography and can even be used for portrait photography. It provides a similar effect to the LensBaby Velvet 56 or 85mm lenses.
Canon is not the only camera that offers a multiple exposure option within the camera menu. Other camera bodies include: The Canon EOS 5D Mark IV & III, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EOS-1D X, Canon 70D and higher.
For Nikon users, this feature is known as Image Overlay, and can be found in several higher end Nikon DSLRs including Nikon D800 and Nikon D300. Click here for more Nikon information.
Other camera makers also offer multiple exposure capabilities such as Fuji X-Pro1, Fuji X100s, Olympus OM-D E-M5, and OMD EM1 Mark II and some Pentax cameras.
It’s a wonderful feature and the creative possibilities are endless. Time to drag out that camera manual and see if you have this option available with your model.
Categories: digital art, Flowers, Nature
Emily Carter ~ Nature as Art 
Beautiful, soft effect.
It surprised me Eliza. I’m going to try this technique with sunflowers tomorrow for a petal starburst effect.
Can’t wait to see it!
Oh that’s lovely! My 70D has the HDR multiple exposure but not sure about the image stacking. I usually do that manually.
I just tried it today with the 5DM4 and in Live View when you reframe, you see it automatically stack them and what it’ll look like. Super cool ! I’m just loading images now to look at.