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How would you focus this? (50mm at f/1.4)

piblondin

By piblondin
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piblondin

piblondin

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I rotated and, I think, shifted the plane of focus. As a result, she's out of focus. How would you go about shooting at f/1.4 when you want to frame your subject towards the edge of the photo at medium distances? I know you can lean back, etc. But is there a more accurate way to do this?

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I would put forth that sometimes what is the essence of photography is often lost not being able to see the forest for the trees. The details of photography obscure the art for some.   Street sho

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mmradman
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Use advantage of sensor high pixel count and crop, this is easy suggestion.   Practice off centre focusing, this may take some effort.   Wait for Leica with movable focus patch, fodder for Interne

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mirekti

mirekti

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I wouldn't rotate, but I would lean or make a step towards left.

Imagine there is a 2D surface at the point of focus (like a huge window glass), and that surface is parallel to the sensor surface. Once you move left and keep the sensor parallel to that surface it should be ok. It could not work well with the lenses that don't have flat field of focus.

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indergaard

indergaard

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Focus and recompose is the only option on the M cameras.

You use the center focusing patch to focus, then recompose. This is not a very accurate way to focus though, and requires a lot of practice and usually several exposures (while leaning a bit back, being centered, and leaning a bit forward) to nail a decent focus. Instead of leaning forward and back you can also ofcourse just use the focusing barrel to do the same (intentionally front focus and back focus, so to speak).

 

If the M240's LV or EVF would allow you to move the focus magnification area that would by far be the most accurate way of focusing in these conditions. Sadly the software engineers at Leica was too lazy to do this, or, this functionality is reserved for a future M as it is purely a software implementation in a LV/EVF capable camera, and has nothing to do with hardware limitations at all.

 

Certain AF cameras also allow you to use the center focus patch to focus, then recompose in the traditional way, while the subject you focused on are tracked and the focus is kept while you recompose. My Sony A7S has this functionality, and it's great - but I'm not sure if it's faster than just moving the focus patch where you want it in the first place.

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jaapv

jaapv

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Too lazy? I understand that they tried but is was impossible with the present hardware. There is no indication that it can be done solely in software.

Anyway, I would suggest that focus bracketing or judicious -based on experience- focus adjustments are simpler to do than fiddling with the arrow buttons with the camera at your eye.

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indergaard

indergaard

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Too lazy? I understand that they tried but is was impossible with the present hardware. There is no indication that it can be done solely in software.

 

Moving the focus point in software on a EVF/LV capable camera is 100% a software feature. It cannot be a hardware limitation, anyone who claims that are basically making up an excuse.

 

It's as easy as this:

 

The entire sensor is active when in LV/EVF mode. It captures the entire scene, at the same time, at the same rate, with the same exposure and everything.

 

The focus magnificationf feature is a digital zoom. It basically just enlarges a certain area of the sensor. The area that you choose to digitally zoom in on is purely choosen in software. The entire sensor is active and captures the entire scene (what the lens sees) even though you digitally choose to zoom in / magnify a certain area of the captured live data stream.

 

This digitally magnified area can be moved. This is purely a software feature, and is not reliant on ANY hardware except; It is requires a LV/EVF capable camera that has the ability to display a live data stream directly of the sensor, and it requires a D-pad or similar so that the end user can move the magnified area.

 

Having worked partially with optics and software engineering and software integration for video devices for Tandberg and Cisco previously, with their video communications and collaboration tools, I am very confident in my statement. As long as Live View or EVF is involved - it is purely a software feature. The same technical basics applies to every product that uses live data streams for video in this way.

 

The same even applies to webcameras. You can even write software for webcameras that does this for you even though the webcamera does not officially support it, simply because you just take the live data stream and digitally zoom in on a selected area! It's that simple. Some software takes this even a step further, like Microsoft Lync, which automates live cropping and panning based on human movement. This works on EVERY webcamera ever manufactured. It just takes the raw video stream and manipulates it based on the content. So it's all software... And the same principles apply to every device that sends a real-time datastream from a imaging sensor. It doesn't matter how big or small the sensor is, who manufactured it, or how many pixels it has or doesn't have.

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jaapv

jaapv

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It suggests that the image does not suffer from focus-recompose, but that it is simply frontfocussed, as nothing else of the steet surface is in focus either.

Not that this negates the existence of the change in plane of focus when recomposing in general.

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jaapv

jaapv

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Moving the focus point in software on a EVF/LV capable camera is 100% a software feature. It cannot be a hardware limitation, anyone who claims that are basically making up an excuse.

 

It's as easy as this:

 

The entire sensor is active when in LV/EVF mode. It captures the entire scene, at the same time, at the same rate, with the same exposure and everything.

 

The focus magnificationf feature is a digital zoom. It basically just enlarges a certain area of the sensor. The area that you choose to digitally zoom in on is purely choosen in software. The entire sensor is active and captures the entire scene (what the lens sees) even though you digitally choose to zoom in / magnify a certain area of the captured live data stream.

 

This digitally magnified area can be moved. This is purely a software feature, and is not reliant on ANY hardware except; It is requires a LV/EVF capable camera that has the ability to display a live data stream directly of the sensor, and it requires a D-pad or similar so that the end user can move the magnified area.

 

Having worked partially with optics and software engineering and software integration for video devices for Tandberg and Cisco previously, with their video communications and collaboration tools, I am very confident in my statement. As long as Live View or EVF is involved - it is purely a software feature. The same technical basics applies to every product that uses live data streams for video in this way.

 

The same even applies to webcameras. You can even write software for webcameras that does this for you even though the webcamera does not officially support it, simply because you just take the live data stream and digitally zoom in on a selected area! It's that simple. Some software takes this even a step further, like Microsoft Lync, which automates live cropping and panning based on human movement. This works on EVERY webcamera ever manufactured. It just takes the raw video stream and manipulates it based on the content. So it's all software... And the same principles apply to every device that sends a real-time datastream from a imaging sensor. It doesn't matter how big or small the sensor is, who manufactured it, or how many pixels it has or doesn't have.

 

You make a good case for offering your services to Leica as a consultant...

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pop

pop

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So odd that you can't move the area of magnification....wouldn't focus peaking still be useful in this case, though?

 

Yes, you can use focus peaking without any magnification at 50mm. You can trust me or those who claim it was poorly done and useless or you can go and try it for yourself.

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mmradman

mmradman

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Yes, you can use focus peaking without any magnification at 50mm. You can trust me or those who claim it was poorly done and useless or you can go and try it for yourself.

 

Agree, it works.

 

Good for those who prefer EVF focusing, only 50mm sings when used with optical VF.

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