Nifty fifty 50mm focal distance settings

[George Stoichev]

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These are my presets I try to memorize in order to achieve good sense of distance and to can shoot with zone focusing with my 50mm M6.

What are your zone focusing experience with 50mm film Leica ?

 

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Edited August 20, 2022 by George Stoichev

[a.noctilux]

Good for you.

I'd just use the scale on my lens in use.

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😉

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I"m happy having choices of larger dof scale when I need (not often ! )...

Don't forget to focus bracket, and use RF adjust rather than relying on "zone focussing" which is not normal using of precise tools like Leica M6.

Do what you want 😉.

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[George Stoichev]

31 minutes ago, a.noctilux said:

Good for you.

I'd just use the scale on my lens in use.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

😉

👍

I"m happy having choices of larger dof scale when I need (not often ! )...

Don't forget to focus bracket, and use RF adjust rather than relying on "zone focussing" which is not normal using of precise tools like Leica M6.

Do what you want 😉.

For some of you focusing using the focus bracket shooting moving people on the street could be an easy task, but for me is impossible.

[a.noctilux]

28 minutes ago, George Stoichev said:

For some of you focusing using the focus bracket shooting moving people on the street could be an easy task, but for me is impossible.

No I don't think it's impossible.

You lack some practices, that's all.

Practice a lot, have confidence, practice.

Think of star dancers or sport champions as "guides".

...have fun practicing.

[spydrxx]

When I began photography 35mm rangefinders were more expensive than zone focussed viewfinder models. I quickly learned a few tricks of the trade. First was f/8. Next was the number of feet between sidewalk segments = x ft, Then was the old boy scout trick...the number of times my body would flip to reach a subject, and lastly, presetting the distance and walking into the subject pressing the shutter release at the moment I hit the distance. One other I learned was a variation of the last...to preset the distance and activate the self timer so that the shutter would release as I passed the subject...having the camera on a strap at my waist, so as to not alert the subject. This one took a little practice but produced some memorable results, like the shot below (previously posted):

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[Pierre68]

My way of doing focus bracketing is simply setting the focus roughly with the viewfinder and then taking multiple photos while moving slightly backward and forward.

[Jared]

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On 8/20/2022 at 3:11 AM, George Stoichev said:

These are my presets I try to memorize in order to achieve good sense of distance and to can shoot with zone focusing with my 50mm M6.

What are your zone focusing experience with 50mm film Leica ?

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Those presets basically just mirror the DOF scale from the lens barrel, yes? Pretty close, anyway. They should work reasonably well for most images. Of course, even at f/8 or f/11 there is still only one point of perfect focus, but the circle of confusion is quite small across a reasonable distance range, so you get an OK result. 

I'm not sure I would bother to memorize the scale. I'd rather just learn from experience that, "when stopped down to f/8, I have about 'this' much wiggle room at about 'that' distance." I'm not sure how knowing you're good from 1.7 meters to 2.4 meters when focused at 2m with an aperture of f/8 helps you for zone focusing, when you don't know anything but the approximate distance to your subject since you won't have actually used the rangefinder. Personally, the only time I find the DOF scale really helpful is in more contemplative situations where I can, for example, focus on the closest object that is important to my image, read off the distance, focus on the most distant object that I want to appear reasonably sharp, read the distance, then pick an aperture based on the depth of field scale that range. Even then, the standards for "acceptably sharp" have changed over time, and I tend to use the f/8 lines for a set aperture of f/11, f/5.6 lines for a set aperture of f/8, etc. But in any event, I'm not sure how knowing the range of values helps when you haven't figured the exact distance to your subject--as you won't in the case of range focusing. I find range focusing is really much more about muscle memory than anything else, and heaven forbid you should try a new lens that has a different focus throw from infinity to minimum!