A system for taking motion pictures of a scene with different parts at different focal lengths with a camera that normally would not have sufficient depth of field to capture all parts of said scene in focus. A computer (610) controls a high-speed, digital camera (605) and a lens (600) with rapid focus capability to produce a stack of images at different focal lengths for rapid processing into a composite serial image montage stream in motion picture output format (625). Operator controls permit continuous selection of depth of field (DOF) in the output image and enable a plurality of in-focus and out-of-focus regions over the depth of an image. An optional output port (640) provides for real-time recordation of all images in each stack for later processing. An optional remote control (1015) duplicates the main controls in the camera system (1000) so that a second person can assist in optimizing images as they are recorded, or for remote control of the camera itself. An audio input (645) and an optional digital data input (650) are provided for sound and cueing.