How to get "faster" in manual Focussing....

Tom466 · Joined: 15 Jun 2015 Posts: 26 Location: Viersen, Germany

So I am new to those old Lenses and MF, but it is real Fun to me playing around with them. Are there any Tips how to get faster and safer in getting Things, Objects and especially moving Objects in the right manual Focus. The E-PL2 has no "Focus Peaking" like other Cams for Example. .... (but next Year I am getting myself the Olympus OM-D E-M10, wich has the "Focus Peaking Feature"

Thanks for your Help, Tips and Ideas.

Tom

miran · Joined: 01 Aug 2012 Posts: 1364 Location: Slovenia

In my experience focus peaking doesn't help to focus faster. I use focus peaking only when I have enough time to zoom in and fine tune the focus. To focus quicky I usually turn focus peaking off and rely on the fact that the EVF starts to flicker a tiny little bit when you find best focus. The same is true for the back LCD but to a lesser extent.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

What Miran said. I use focus peaking on my NEX 7 to get me close, then I double check focus using the image magnification function on that camera, which enlarges to 5.9x and 11x. I find this plenty sufficient. 11x is really a handful when trying to hand-hold this camera.

Also, I'd just say this: practice, practice, practice. Back in my film days, I bought plain matte ground glass focusing screens for all my cameras that would take interchangeable screens. I still follow this practice. I initially bought the plain matte screens so it would be easier to use my Sigma 600mm f/8 lens. And I had a couple others that were f/5.6 lenses and a few others that were f/4. With all of these lenses, the standard microprism/split image focusing aids no longer worked very well and had in fact become a nuisance, just getting in the way of my trying to focus and compose. I found that with a bit of practice I got quite fast with plain matte screens, which is why I still use them.

One of my techniques that you might try is rocking the lens to achieve focus. By rocking, what I mean is you turn the focusing collar in both directions from the exact point of focus, reducing the degree of turn with each rock until you settle on that precise center point. It's like what a pendulum does -- it swings back and forth until finally coming to rest at its point of equilibrium. I find this works best when lenses are wide open and not stopped down a ways because that extends the depth of field, which makes it more difficult to determine the precise point of focus. But by the same token it makes things easier as long as I'm willing to trust the DOF the lens is showing.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Magnification is only what accurate really, for example on portrait shoots I check blood lines in white part of eye, if I see it , shoot will be deadly accurate if not either lens is crap Smile

or need try more to have accurate focus.

dwijip · Joined: 16 Jun 2015 Posts: 12 Location: New Zealand

Also It really helps that you know your lens inside and out. How sharp it is at what f stop and focal length and whether it goes past infinity etc. Which I guess all come with practice

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

Wow, Attila, I'd never thought of focusing on blood vessels in the eye. I'd always contented myself with trying to get the reflections sharp -- but I can definitely see how blood vessels would give you a better focal point, since some reflections can be diffuse.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

I am glad I could give you a useful hint

mo · Expire: 2016-07-30

56 DIN · Expire: 2021-11-18

duckrider · Joined: 11 Dec 2013 Posts: 437 Location: Germany

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11

mo · Expire: 2016-07-30

never would I beat my cat,she likes to sit and pose ,well make that sleep and there's my chance Wink

I just have to get her to look my way.I guess that is the key as well to "quick focusing" is know your subject and take plenty of images!Thankfully digital affords us this luxury.
Not quite the blood vessel focus,taken with the G1 and Canon 100/3.5 FL

16:9 · Joined: 04 Apr 2014 Posts: 302 Location: UK

Each type of subject is a law unto itself: if you want to get good at shooting cats, shoot a lot of cats.

oldgearuser · Joined: 15 Oct 2023 Posts: 5 Location: uk

It is the easiest thing, and it is also the hardest thing to focus swiftly and precisely with MF lenses. You need months or years of practice in doing it to become good at it.

1 Get a good photography book that explains the principles of achieving good manual focus and practice what it says.

2 Get a digital camera and practice your technique with that.

The reason is you need to follow good sound principles to have any chance of reliably and swiftly focusing manually.

You also need to practice manually focusing hundreds of times before you have any possibility of success in this. And you need to continually practice this fundamental skill.

Practicing taking 500 images with a film camera is out of the question on a cost basis so digital is the best choice for serious practice.

So what can go wrong and cause poor focus and why is it so hard to do.

The camera has too slow a shutter speed
The camera aperture is too wide
The camera is maladjusted
The camera has a poor focusing screen
The camera is shaking during exposure
The subject is moving too much during exposure
The depth of field is too narrow for the subject
The eyepiece diopter is wrongly set

A word of warning

On cameras that have replaceable focusing screens, screens with manual aids can be fitted to help in manual focusing.

Those with split images often interfere with the normal operation of the camera when using AF lenses.

My personal preference is to practice and become proficient with the standard screen rather than swap the screen out for an MF screen otherwise the camera performance is compromised when using AF lenses.

If you have a replaceable screen check it is fitted correctly.

I found that on a very expensive pro camera it was almost impossible to manually focus reliably, but after removing and refitting the screen the problem went away and the camera focused reliably.

The only explanation that makes sense is that the original screen was incorrectly fitted, and was not the same distance from the lens as the digital sensor is. This prevented me from achieving correct focus.

If the screen is not properly and correctly fixed in its designed position, the focusing screen will show a correctly focused image when it is not correctly focused on the sensor or film plane.

If the focusing screen is incorrectly mounted it will be impossible to achieve correct manual focus.

Even with good technique and with plenty of practice you will still fail to achieve good focus on a significant number of images. There are many variables at work and sometimes just bad luck.

There is a trick that can help quickly select the best focused image on digital cameras.

Take three separate images each one independently focused. examine the image file sizes after downloading to the pc.

The image with the largest file size will be the sharpest image.

The reason for this is, file sizes in digital images rise as the data increases. Digital images have edges the more edges present in the image the greater the detail and the greater the sharpness of the detail.

If there are three images that contain the same details, then the sharpest image will have more edges present and consequently with have a larger file size.

There is a great deal in this topic and I have not explained much due to limitations of space.

There are three fundamentals

1 make sure the camera is correctly and precisely set up
2 learn the basic principles of focusing and of exposure
3 practice image making hundreds of times until it becomes second nature to focus swiftly and accurately

There are no shortcuts.

Manual focusing takes skill, great technique, and plenty of practice this is why AF was developed.

RokkorDoctor · Joined: 27 Nov 2021 Posts: 1268 Location: Kent, UK

Well, since this old thread has been revived...

There is no good answer I think; manual focus is either done slowly and accurately, or faster but less accurate.

Split screens and micro-prisms can be useful on film-cameras, but in live view on digital cameras I find focus "rocking" to be working better.

With focus rocking you jiggle the focus ring back and forth around the optimal point of focus, an hone in on the optimal point by observing two aspects:

- a perceived symmetric amount of defocus/blurring either side of the optimal focus as you move the focus ring back and forth.
- a perceived focus sharpening and softening at double the frequency at which you are moving the focus ring back and forth.

Using tactile feedback and muscle memory:

What helps greatly here are traditional unit-focusing lenses with a linear helicoid focus mechanism; this allows for you to employ short-term muscle memory in conjunction with the above whilst rocking the focus ring back and forth. This often doesn't work so well with non-linear internal focus mechanisms, although once honed-in accurately enough their behaviour also tends to become linear enough. Electronic focus-by-wire with adaptive variable focus pitch/acceleration is a complete no-no as far as utilising muscle memory is concerned.

Doc Sharptail · Joined: 23 Nov 2020 Posts: 993 Location: Winnipeg Canada

There is another factor that hasn't (surprisingly enough) been discussed here yet:

The lens it's self.
It's hard to be fast with a lens with a narrow depth of focus, and either a too short or too long focus throw.
This is where some lenses are notable, like the 200 micro nikkor, with a fairly short focusing radius. It takes a bit of practice.

Some other lenses are quite good with a shorter focus throw that have wider depth of focus like the Tamron 28 f2.5 and the nikkor "H" 50mm f2.

I personally like a very slight resistance to the focusing ring, and have a bit of trouble at times with internal focus mechanisms that almost spin free-wheel style...

-D.S.

RokkorDoctor · Joined: 27 Nov 2021 Posts: 1268 Location: Kent, UK

Lloydy · Expire: 2022-01-01

calvin83 · Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 7554 Location: Hong Kong

[quote="Lloydy"
The worst lenses for this problem seem to be the 500 / 8 mirror lenses. The cheap ones have so little turn on the focus it makes them unusable, the good ones like the Tamron and most major manufacturers are real easy to focus with a long turn. I had a Samyang that was actually decently sharp, but finding the sharp spot was completely random. I soo got rid of that.[/quote]
The Samyang should be benefit from an AF adapter.