Front focusing?

Steelo

Steelo

Messages
2,766
Name
Martin
Edit My Images
No
Evening folks, another dilemma post! I was out again last night for more short-eared owl images, and although I got a couple of images, the ones of this one perched on the post I noticed the barbwire past the owl is sharp where I don't think the owl is. The focus box was 100% on the owl itself, and now although I dismissed @the black fox post about missed focus on my owl images I posted the other day, I'm now questioning that and apologise for totally dismissing the idea!

So the question is, does this image look like it has front focusing issues and got the wire rather than the owl? The wire certainly looks sharper to me. Although it was poor light, the shutter speed was slower than I wanted, so maybe the feathers are moving making it look softer?

Any help/advice appreciated, as long lens\wildlife stuff is all pretty new to this one trick landscape pony!

Only PP was this crop and slight noise reduction in LR

EXIF 1/250th 500mm F7.1 ISO2000

Lumis S1iiE and Lumix S 100-500m lens
P1072267 copy.jpg
 
In my experience cameras will focus on the nearest point within the zone of focus. Looks here like you have a wide zone of focus set using multiple sensors, when a smaller, central zone would be better for the subject. It isn't critical in this photo, but when using wide apertures on long lenses it is better to 'spot focus' and focus lock or use the animal eye focus if your camera has it.
 
Last edited:
Clive K said:
In my experience cameras will focus on the nearest point within the zone of focus. Looks here like you have a wide zone of focus set using multiple sensors, when a smaller, central zone would be better for the subject.
Click to expand...
That's an interesting point, as last night I did make the focus zone wider than what I would normally use, and although the green box was literally just around the owl, I wonder if that's the case!

I also should mention that I was looking along the fenceline to the owl so not square on, if that makes a difference I do not know.
 
I wouldn't be too concerned with this result... it possible the lens is slightly back-focusing (focusing behind desired point), but I wouldn't decide that off of this one image. More critical testing would be needed. Also realize that the depth of focus is typically greater behind the point of focus than it is in front unless taken at short distance for the FL.

What was the subject distance? How hard of a crop? I think there's a decent amount of detail for an image taken at ≥35 m, in lower light (reduced contrast/direction), and higher ISO (noise).
 
Last edited:
Clive K said:
I've added a bit to that post.
Click to expand...
Thank you, I did have eye AF on, but it for some reason wouldn't find lock on the eye on this one, so it just gave the square around the owl, possibly down to fading light, I'm not sure, but I noticed it wasn't tracking the eye.
 
sk66 said:
I wouldn't be too concerned with this result... it possible the lens is slightly back-focusing (focusing behind desired point), but I wouldn't decide that off of this one image. More critical testing would be needed. Also realize that the depth of focus is typically greater behind the point of focus than it is in front unless taken at short distance for the FL.

What was the subject distance? How hard of a crop? I think there's a decent amount of detail for an image taken at ≥35 m, in lower light (reduced contrast/direction), and higher ISO (noise).
Click to expand...
That's good to hear Steven thank you. The owl would be maybe 30-40m away, and this is a heavy crop just to negate all the empty space to show what I perceived as an issue better. That's good to know that it's not something to be concerned with taken everything into account.
 
O.k I can see the problem straight away , your applying landscape rules to wildlife .. a 500mm lens should have a minimum of 1/750 sec shutter speed and probably needs f8 for that extra d.o.f for back to front sharpness , I presume this was evening or morning shooting hence the high I.s.o
Not familiar with your camera does it have bird I.d built in ? And was this handheld or mounted .
And in blowing up the image on my I.pad it still looks soft overall and lacking fine feather detail I.e facial hair on the owl and feather detail .. .. have you thought of opening a Flickr account and hosting from there, as direct forum uploads are heavily downgraded.
P.S you shouldn’t get any back or front focussing on a mirrorless camera
 
Last edited:
AS a point of interest re front/back focus
I have the Panasonic G9ii camera and the above can be programmed in.

P1016409.jpg
 
the black fox said:
O.k I can see the problem straight away , your applying landscape rules to wildlife .. a 500mm lens should have a minimum of 1/750 sec shutter speed and probably needs f8 for that extra d.o.f for back to front sharpness , I presume this was evening or morning shooting hence the high I.s.o
Not familiar with your camera does it have bird I.d built in ? And was this handheld or mounted .
And in blowing up the image on my I.pad it still looks soft overall and lacking fine feather detail I.e facial hair on the owl and feather detail .. .. have you thought of opening a Flickr account and hosting from there, as direct forum uploads are heavily downgraded
Click to expand...
Thank you Jeff, I know I was way too slow on shutter speed, it was evening about an hour before sunset and just no light at all and I was just heading home and spotted it on the post so literally stopped jumped out the car and shot what I could. In hindsight I should have increased the ISO to get the shutter speed up more, but in my excited hurried state I just wanted a shot, and I'm not used to working quickly yet.

The camera does have animal tracking and eye detection, with hybrid phase detect AF so can do it, but my overall sense at the moment is clearly user error.

It's the lack of fine detail that is puzzling me, but again, it's probably down to user error more than the gear, which as a seasoned landscape photographer pains me to admit :ROFLMAO:

I've just upgraded my Flickr, so here's one from last night I'm relatively pleased with...
Short Eared Owl Allendale by Martin Steele, on Flickr

...and the one I posted above...P1072267 copy by Martin Steele, on Flickr
 
realspeed said:
AS a point of interest re front/back focus
I have the Panasonic G9ii camera and the above can be programmed in.

View attachment 490654
Click to expand...
Thanks, I've been doing some deep diving into the menus this evening and found a couple of things I never knew about, I'll have a look for this tomorrow too.
 
Steelo said:
In hindsight I should have increased the ISO to get the shutter speed up more
Click to expand...
It's a circle of tradeoffs... higher ISO means less light recorded, which means noisier image, which means fine detail is lost in noise, which means fine details are removed by noise reduction...

I really can't judge much of anything critical at 1024px. And downsampling to 1024px results in fine details being lost (pixels combined). But I'm guessing that this second image is an even harder crop and less compressed.
 
sk66 said:
It's a circle of tradeoffs... higher ISO means less light recorded, which means noisier image, which means fine detail is lost in noise, which means fine details are removed by noise reduction...

I really can't judge much of anything critical at 1024px. And downsampling to 1024px results in fine details being lost (pixels combined). But I'm guessing that this second image is an even harder crop and less compressed.
Click to expand...
To be honest I just resize everything to 1024px as it's what I'm used to doing with my landscapes for social media, again, probably not best practice to be judging things on! The other image is still a fair crop. I'll post the full size (cropped) image...I'm not sure why Flickr won't show it at it's fullest size?

P1072225 copy by Martin Steele, on Flickr
 
Last edited:
sk66 said:
Also, keep in mind that most owl feathers are far less defined than other birds... it's part of why they are able to fly silently.


Still limited to 1024px viewing.
Click to expand...
Yeah I don't understand why it won't let me view it any larger! I've not used Flickr in a couple of years and can't fathom it out!
 
I still don't think it's original size, unless you specifically cropped it to 2048 px long edge... but could be.

I don't see much to complain about... it's had a good bit of sharpening applied; maybe a touch heavy but not bad. Noise reduction isn't excessive and it hasn't been AI'd. It's just a long distance shot and resolving fine detail at distance is asking a lot. It certainly doesn't help that you are pushing SS as the smallest amount of motion blur will eliminate the finest details possible. But I can't say if/how much it has hurt, certainly not a lot.

But I think the first image probably has more fine detail; it's probably less of a crop.
 
Assuming this is mirrorless you shouldn't get the front/back focusing lens issues you got with DSLR's as the way mirrorless and DSLR's focus is completely different. DSLR's don't derive focus from the image sensor, hence the focusing issues they have, mirrorless cameras do take focus off the image sensor so front/back focusing should not be an issue.

The only real focus issues I've ever had with mirrorless as opposed to human error have been when setting the camera focus mode to wide area as described in a post above. What this leads to is the camera selecting the focus point and what it selects may be different to what the photographer may select. eg. Not the birds eye which is what the photographer would probably select. I use single point or wide area with eye detect as these modes will focus on what I want the camera to focus on.

I normally use aperture or manual mode with a single focus point but also have various focus modes in custom shooting modes so that they are easily selectable. Googling tells me that the Lumix S1IIe has bird eye detect so I suggest setting up a custom mode or programmable button with it. Another option is to select tracking, focus on the point you want to focus on and then recompose and the focus point should stay where you initially put it, or at least it does with my cameras.

Good luck but I think this is a problem with the focus mode you selected rather than a genuine front/back focusing issue.
 
sk66 said:
I still don't think it's original size, unless you specifically cropped it to 2048 px long edge... but could be.

I don't see much to complain about... it's had a good bit of sharpening applied; maybe a touch heavy but not bad. Noise reduction isn't excessive and it hasn't been AI'd. It's just a long distance shot and resolving fine detail at distance is asking a lot. It certainly doesn't help that you are pushing SS as the smallest amount of motion blur will eliminate the finest details possible. But I can't say if/how much it has hurt, certainly not a lot.

But I think the first image probably has more fine detail; it's probably less of a crop.
Click to expand...
That's the 'full size' after I've cropped in for how I wanted the image.

Tbh after this thread and getting to throw ideas and read back theories and opinions, I think I'm maybe just looking for things that are either out of my control (distance of bird so cropping in) detail that is lost with not quite fast enough shutter speed or cropping, and things that just aren't there in the first instance (maybe expecting too much).

Every day's a school day, but I'm pleased I've got TP to bounce these things about! Thank you Steven.
 
woof woof said:
Assuming this is mirrorless you shouldn't get the front/back focusing lens issues you got with DSLR's as the way mirrorless and DSLR's focus is completely different. DSLR's don't derive focus from the image sensor, hence the focusing issues they have, mirrorless cameras do take focus off the image sensor so front/back focusing should not be an issue.

The only real focus issues I've ever had with mirrorless as opposed to human error have been when setting the camera focus mode to wide area as described in a post above. What this leads to is the camera selecting the focus point and what it selects may be different to what the photographer may select. eg. Not the birds eye which is what the photographer would probably select. I use single point or wide area with eye detect as these modes will focus on what I want the camera to focus on.

I normally use aperture or manual mode with a single focus point but also have various focus modes in custom shooting modes so that they are easily selectable. Googling tells me that the Lumix S1IIe has bird eye detect so I suggest setting up a custom mode or programmable button with it. Another option is to select tracking, focus on the point you want to focus on and then recompose and the focus point should stay where you initially put it, or at least it does with my cameras.

Good luck but I think this is a problem with the focus mode you selected rather than a genuine front/back focusing issue.
Click to expand...
Thanks Alan, it certainly makes sense to me that it's probably more just user error than anything (and maybe expecting too much from heavy crops). It was on animal and eye detect but for some reason wasn't focusing on the eye like it usually would on this bird, assuming possibly because light was fading fast.

As my post to Steven above, maybe I'm trying to run before I can crawl in a new to me genre of photography.
 
Steelo said:
Thanks Alan, it certainly makes sense to me that it's probably more just user error than anything (and maybe expecting too much from heavy crops). It was on animal and eye detect but for some reason wasn't focusing on the eye like it usually would on this bird, assuming possibly because light was fading fast.

As my post to Steven above, maybe I'm trying to run before I can crawl in a new to me genre of photography.
Click to expand...

With those numbers the light can't have been all that bad... I suppose it could be a balance between ISO and shutter speed at 500mm. I think I'd have gone for a faster shutter speed and hoped that noise wouldn't have been too much of an issue. I suppose another thing to try if you have the time is to take more than one picture at different settings, faster and slower shutter speeds / higher and lower ISO, and pick the best as your keeper.

And another thing... Processing software could help you if noise becomes an issue at faster shutter speeds. I have Adobe CS 2026 which contains "Denoise" and it's almost supernatural, slow on my old pc but impressive when it's done. If your processing software has the same or something similar it might be worth taking some test shots and finding out how far you can push things.

Good luck with this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top