who zone focuses?

[Scott Root]

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Sean Reid has a great article on zone focusing techniques that I am practicing, but I wonder who out there also uses these techniques and in what situations?

[ho_co]

I zone focus for general street shooting with a 21 (28 equiv) on M8.

 

Did the same with 28mm on film. Always have.

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[norm_snyder]

Same here. In my case, 28mm on M8 and 35mm on film [or full frame M9 if I ever take the plunge. Also, it's one of the reasons I like the tabs on my lenses. The position of the tab gives me some tactile feedback as to the focus, and I can get "in the ballpark" adjusting focus slightly as I raise the camera to my eye.

[andybarton]

Me too, unless I'm shooting wide open. I thought everybody did.

[biglouis]

Sean Reid has a great article on zone focusing techniques that I am practicing, but I wonder who out there also uses these techniques and in what situations?

 

In my case, a lot of the time. I mostly work with wides and often crowded urban scenes where I want strong depth of field so I rarely work below f8.

 

With my wides I set them hyperfocally with the infinity mark on the f-stop scale and bang away. Having said that, the only lens that I had which I found this did not work well with was the tiny CV15/4.5. In that case, even though it had a prodigious depth of field, I was getting a lot of fuzzy photographs. For some reason with the CV15/4.5 it worked better if I set the focus to infinity and the aperture to f5.6.

 

I have a few problems with Reid's article, which is unusual because I normally agree with what he has to say. Zone focussing works well imho with focal lengths including and below 35mm but I wouldn't expect to get good results with 50mm and above because the depth of field is so narrow. If it works for Sean Reid, then fine but for me it rarely does.

 

LouisB

[hoppyman]

Me, three

Works fine with a wide when you are grabbing quick shots on the street.

[Scott Root]

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What does hyperfocally mean?

[holgerf]

Same here. In my case, 28mm on M8 and 35mm on film [or full frame M9 if I ever take the plunge. Also, it's one of the reasons I like the tabs on my lenses. The position of the tab gives me some tactile feedback as to the focus, and I can get "in the ballpark" adjusting focus slightly as I raise the camera to my eye.

 

Agree absolutely.

 

Holger

[biglouis]

What does hyperfocally mean?

 

Hyperfocal is a fancier term for zone focus - can't break old habits and I should have used the simpler language.

[Guest mc_k]

I don't have the article. Since I can't focus by rangefinder on someone walking toward me I'll use a zone and let them walk into it. I use it for 50mm - 90mm; it's the substitute for auto focus.

 

With a wider lens you can basically cover the whole range with two zones, and hyperfocusing is just a special case of a zone.

[Guest mc_k]

I liked the deleted post; you should have left it. But I think a lot of times it is hard enough to get contrast for focusing on a stationary target, much less a moving target, and you will have to zone or prefocus.

[lct]

Sean Reid has a great article on zone focusing techniques that I am practicing, but I wonder who out there also uses these techniques and in what situations?

Simply use DoF markings of lenses to sharpen foregrounds or backgrounds. Sean must be commenting on more sophiscated techniques i guess. R-D1, Elmar 50/2.8. Larger file here.

 

[falkk]

i do...

when i got my M8 with the 16-18-21 WATE, the dealer showed me:

 

aperture around f5,6 and focus near infinity... fits most urban scenarios and fast street-photography.

[bill]

+1

 

Always with street photography with my II. Get the shot, then refine the focus if necessary.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[lars_bergquist]

Hyperfocal is a fancier term for zone focus - can't break old habits and I should have used the simpler language.

 

No. The hyperfocal distance is the distance where the used f-stop gives you an (acceptably) sharp image from infinity to a distance which is always 1/2 the set distance.

 

So with a 35mm lens at f:8, you should, if we may believe the d.o.f. scale, set the focus mark on the focusing ring to the right (farther) f:8 mark on the d.o.f. scale. The lens is then set to about 4.8m, and we should have a sharp picture from infinity to 4.8 / 2 = 2.4m. So hyperfocal technique is NOT the same thing as zone focusing. It is ONE kind of zone focusing where the zone ends at infinity.

 

WARNING: The above example is misleading. The principle is correct, but d.o.f. scales are computed for a maximum acceptable circle of confusion of 1/30mm. This would permit a 3x enlargement only, which was acceptable in the 1920's, but is totally inadequate even for a 10x15cm print. We have to work with a circle of confusion that is only half as large, 1/60th, and this we get by reading the scale at an aperture that is numerically 1/2 of that we have actually set on the aperture ring. So if the lens in the example above is set to f:8, we read the scale at f:4.

 

Wider f-stops are not very meaningful even with wide angle lenses, as the markings on the focusing scale (in meters or feet) just are too few and too wide apart. Smaller stops are bad because of increasing image deterioration by diffraction. Hyperfocal, or any kind of zone focusing, is therefore a technique for wide wide-angle lenses. Even a 35 is really marginal.

 

The old man from the Age of Scale Focusing

[biglouis]

Lars, thanks for the more exact explanation. I've always felt zone/hyperfocal is pretty much useless above 35mm so it is interesting to read your views.

[earleygallery]

+1

 

I will have the lens set to an aperture/distance which will most likely give me a sharp image if a grab shot is necessary.

 

My Skopar 25mm lens is great, it has 3 click stops for zone focus points (something like 1m, 3m and 10m from memory) and I've not yet had any out of focus shots with it.

[sean_reid]

I have a few problems with Reid's article, which is unusual because I normally agree with what he has to say. Zone focussing works well imho with focal lengths including and below 35mm but I wouldn't expect to get good results with 50mm and above because the depth of field is so narrow. If it works for Sean Reid, then fine but for me it rarely does.

 

LouisB

 

Hi Louis,

 

It depends on the subject distance, of course. FWIW, I use zone focus most often with 35 mm and wider lenses but I have also done so with 50s when my subjects are a bit further away.

 

The subway pictures I made in NYC and Hungary in the early 1990s were all zone focused with a 40 mm lens, mostly at F/4.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

Edited November 27, 2009 by sean_reid

[sean_reid]

Hyperfocal is a fancier term for zone focus - can't break old habits and I should have used the simpler language.

 

Hyperfocal is one type of estimated focus technique among several. I don't ever use it myself but many do. "Hyperfocal" and "Zone" focusing are not necessarily the same however and that distinction is one I tried to draw in the article.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

Edited November 27, 2009 by sean_reid

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[sean_reid]

I have a few problems with Reid's article, which is unusual because I normally agree with what he has to say. Zone focussing works well imho with focal lengths including and below 35mm but I wouldn't expect to get good results with 50mm and above because the depth of field is so narrow. If it works for Sean Reid, then fine but for me it rarely does.

 

LouisB

 

Other than the fact that I sometimes do this with 50 mm lenses what are the other "problems" (questions? disagreements?) you encountered?

 

Cheers,

 

Sean