Photograph your hand as a bookmark

Saturday 16 August 2025, 20:02 by Nando Harmsen | 2,688 views | 4 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

There are photographic techniques that require a series of (almost) identical photos. You need to know where that series starts and where it ends. There is a simple way to mark the beginning and end.

Photo series can be made for many different reasons. I am not talking about continuous shooting for action, but about static subjects such as a landscape.

In this case, think of exposure bracketing, series for a panorama, star trails and focus stacking. If you know of more, let me know in a comment below this post.

Focus stacking was used here to achieve maximum depth of field. You do need to know where the series starts and where it ends. Especially if you are making multiple series.

You need to be able to recognise that series among all the photos on your memory card. Every camera offers the option of placing such a series in a separate folder. That can be useful for separating the series from the rest of the photos.

All cameras offer some way of creating separate folders. If that works for you, that is perfect. There is an easier way.
Creating these separate folders in the camera can sometimes be quite cumbersome. Besides, you often lose the folder structure when importing into your photo catalogue.

There is a much simpler way to separate the series from the rest of the photos. Photograph your hand as a bookmark. Hold your hand in front of your lens and take a photo. Close the series with another photo of your hand.

Hold your hand in front of the lens for a moment and take a photo. Do the same after the series has been made.
This way, after importing into your photo catalogue, you know exactly where the series starts and where it ends. You can easily delete the photos with the hand later if you no longer need them.

The series of images is between the photos of the hands. In this case, it is for focus stacking. There is no puzzling needed to identify the beginning and end of the series.
I have one more important tip when using automatic bracketing series and focus stacking. Only set this function after photographing your hand. And switch the function off before photographing your hand again to close the series.

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