zone focusing, and candid help...

[leica1215]

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I m using 35 summicron now, I tends to take snap shot of people and friends, the difficulties is that when you focus people lets say a meter away, they move or turning head here and there I found I missed focus quite often, ( pictures comes out not razor sharp ) even though it is 35, it should be easier to get good focus and DOF than 50s.

 

please share some Technic, especially when people are walking towards to you, or moving a bit left and right how to get razor sharp images?

 

Thanks

[jaapv]

It is quite simple. Zone focussing isindeed the way to get a quick snapshot of accptable sharpness, but it is not a way to focus accurately. For that reason the camera is provided with a rangefinder. DOF is a misnomer. It should be called DOU (Depth OF ( acceptable) Unsharpness.

[jaapv]

The technique you are looking for, if somebody is walking towards you, focus exactly on a spot on the ground and release the camera as the person reaches that spot.

In general, focus on fixed objects in your image and use those as focus references.

Slightly different for instance, in wildlife photography it is easier to focus on the grass next to an animal than on the animal itself.

[acordes]

You may have a look here:

Manual focus technique

[250swb]

If people are walking or moving you need to keep the shutter speed up and ideally an aperture small enough to offer sufficient DOF for a slight focus error as they move. Yeah, OK I know somebody will say practice focusing and errors won't occur, but they are photography Gods and stuff happens to mere mortals. So maybe use f/8 and not f/4. But this often means aperture and shutter are at odds with each other for a fast shutter speed, so use Auto ISO to keep the shutter speed up. Yeah, OK I know if you use Auto ISO you are not a photography God and just a bleb, but it works.

 

Steve

[chris_tribble]

1. Set aperture to f8

2. Set the camera to A mode and select a realistic iso value depending on light conditions - unless it's very bright you're probably going to need 800 or 1600.

3. Use the focus indicator on the lens to select the distance range you're likely to be shooting within. For example, with the 35 summicron. at f8 and the indicator pointing to 2 meters everything between 1.3 and 3 metres will be roughly in focus. Focus point at 3 metres, everything between 2m and 5m will be acceptably sharp. Not pin-sharp perhaps, but certainly good for street work.

 

Working this way, with practice, you can shoot from the hip or with a short strap at chest level, or grab quick shots with the camera to your eye to frame.

 

Takes a bit of practice, but it works - and is more reliable than AF once you're used to it.

[leica1215]

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You may have a look here:

Manual focus technique

 

Thanks, interesting and very useful to me.

 

Sent from my GT-I9502 using Tapatalk

[jaapv]

Still, the technique will become more and more obsolete as AF progresses.

[Bill W]

Still, the technique will become more and more obsolete as AF progresses.

When I set my camera to "A" the autofocus does not work.....:D

[tobey bilek]

There is only one plane of sharpness. No zone of sharpness.

 

The closer the subject, the more critical the focus.

 

Small stops with/wo flash will help. So will learning to focus by feel as you raise the camera.

 

Nikons auto focus is very fast on the better cameras. They can also be set to focus continuously to follow moving subjects.

[Mr_Jones]

As already mentioned zone focussing is much easier the further away the subject is. At those distances perfect sharpness is also less of an issue though. It often makes more sense to ask questions of yourself about the composition and content of the frame than the sharpness anyway.

 

Quite often a shallow depth of field creates a very different pleasing effect at a distance to the effect it creates very close. The isolation of a subject that fills the frame vs the isolation of a subject to draw attention to it. So it's often important to have more control of the subject at close range.

 

Just my experience of the problem and how it lead to me questioning my intention for the end result rather than the technical achievement of a perfectly sharp frame.

[CheshireCat]

There is only one plane of sharpness. No zone of sharpness.

 

 

In most lenses, there is no such plane, as the field curvature may have a complex shape.

 

The concept of Depth Of Field is still valid, but:

- It is usually a complex shape.

- It is thinner than most people imagine, as you need the circle of confusion to be as small as a couple sensor pixels.

 

Therefore, we can state that:

1) The rangefinder is obsolete and useless for focus-and-recompose with many lenses.

2) The DOF scale in our lenses is totally useless and should be replaced by a Latin motto.

[CheshireCat]

DOF is a misnomer. It should be called DOU (Depth OF ( acceptable) Unsharpness.

 

Nice. Let's introduce the following formal definition:

 

DOSEFM: Depth Of Sharp Enough For Me.

 

Which is easily computed replacing the useless DOF scale in our lenses with the following motto: "There is more to a photo than sharpness".

[250swb]

Which is easily computed replacing the useless DOF scale in our lenses with the following motto: "There is more to a photo than sharpness".

 

Indeed, and it wasn't many years ago that a slightly un-sharp image was still lauded if it was still strong in content and composition. Things have changed, culturally because perfection is now expected beyond quality, and visually because a digital file can look pretty vapid if devoid of a sharp edge or texture. Any slightly un-sharp image, if it otherwise has merit, can benefit greatly by adding some grain to replace sharp edges with areas of sharp texture, it satisfies the eye in the same way.

 

Steve

[Mr_Jones]

It seems to me all that's changed is the universal ability to instantly examine a picture at huge magnification to check the sharpness. I do it myself with my own pictures but almost never subject anyone else's to the same process.

 

I'm more interested in the composition and emotional content of other peoples work. It usually takes a few years before I value my own pictures.

[Guest jvansmit]

I find zone focusing much harder with large sensor cameras like the M240 which is frustrating for street and doco work. My rate of 'keepers' has dropped off a lot since changing from the M9 even though I mostly use 21mm.

 

I'm now using a Fuji X-E2 in both manual & AF mode which seems far more practical for street and unposed people photography.

[Mr_Jones]

Surprising it would change from the M9 to the M240 because the sensor size is the same. I found the higher ISO helped a bit on the M240 because you have the option of a smaller aperture with the same light.

[Guest jvansmit]

Surprising it would change from the M9 to the M240 because the sensor size is the same. I found the higher ISO helped a bit on the M240 because you have the option of a smaller aperture with the same light.

 

One is 18Mp and the other is 24Mp.

[Mr_Jones]

Similar to the problem I had with the A7r, changing to 36mp. I did resample a few to 18mp and sure enough the perceived sharpness improved when viewing at 100%. I understand the maths but I tend to agree with you anyway. More pixels will challenge you to achieve a similar sharpness viewing at 100%. On the other hand when you look at the pictures normally it contributes to greater resolution of detail, so a bit of a contradiction there.

 

I thought you might be referring to the depth of field difference between similar equivalent focal lengths on crop and full frame sensors which is more of an issue for zone focussing.

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[Guest jvansmit]

sorry for straying off topic but it's got me thinking that I'd rather like a more basic & lighter M with a smaller sensor with good depth of field for zone focusing.