who zone focuses?

[lars_bergquist]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

If this looks good to you, fine. I am not going to criticize you.

 

For the rest, technical terms like 'hyperfocal' have agreed meanings. We cannot use them arbitrarily, and expect to be understood. Some of us are also vandalizing what is maybe our most precious common property -- the language, communication itself. Oh well, according to the economists it is worthless, because nobody owns it, so nobody can sell it at a price. Priceless equals worthless, according to current received wisdom.

 

As for depth of field, I have lost count, but my latest explanation is in a thread here called 'a focus question'. I won't repeat it for the remainder of this week.

 

The old man from the Age of the 3.5cm Elmar

[holgerf]

I think that zone-focusing properly refers to the practice of setting the focus on the lens to a distance which ensures that dof at the working aperture will cover the expected actual subject distances. (ie - I'm walking in the street and expect to be shooting at about 3-5meters so I set focus to about 3.5M and stop down to fit 5M inside dof).

 

Hyperfocal is setting the focus on the lens without regard to the expected subject distance, but purely to maximise dof out to infinity at the working aperture (presumably where the expected subject distance falls within that dof).

 

Pre-focusing, for me - means setting the focus to the expected subject distance based on my current shooting environment, and letting dof fall where it may based on my working aperture. This is what I do most often in practice, often to distances like 1, 2.5 or 2 meters. I almost never use hyperfocal, because I almost never care about stuff in the far distance being in focus unless I'm shooting landscape - in which case I have plenty of time to set focus however I want.

 

David,

 

This is the successful attempt to discribe the different methods from the point of the USER (When to use it?) and not from the TECHNICAL VIEW (What does it mean?).

 

Excellent comunicated, you should write specialized books for people who want to learn!

 

Best

Holger

[lct]

This is the successful attempt to discribe the different methods from the point of the USER (When to use it?) and not from the TECHNICAL VIEW (What does it mean?)...

Not sure if i see what you mean. Would you mind to elaborate on this point?

[Jeff S]

Regarding hyperfocal on the cropped M8, the following article from Luminous Landscape may be useful...see discussion of Depth of Field near bottom...Luminous landscape

 

I don't personally use this process for simple zone or pre-focusing, but helps to explain the theory nonetheless.

 

Jeff