Hyperfocal shooting. should i get an m42 lens?

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iced_jacob

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Hello everyone. I'm trying to get into street photos a bit more and stop using my zooms, and start shooting primes hyperfocally. my problem is that the distance scales on my sony af lenses are very short (i.e. 2m and infinity are too close) to be able to tell where hf distance is.

So my question is: do m42 lenses have a bigger scale requiring more twisting to change focus? if so do they have markings like 5m 8m etc?
 
The distance markings have more to do with focal length than anything else. You will get more further distance markings on longer lenses, basically because infinity is further away with them.

Hyperfocal distance setting is easy enough though (and those distance marking are often not very acurate anyway). Go to http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html and find out what the HFD is, then measure out that distance and focus the lens carefully on it. Note the position.

However, you probably don't want HFD for street photography. It's mainly intended for landscapes with infinity always included. What may be better is zone-focusing where you set, say, a 30mm lens at f/8 and pre-focused on 3m, then you'll have sharpness from 2m to 6.5m. Check it out on DoF Master.
 
Like hippy says hyperfocal focusing won't make for great street shots you won't get any subject separation. Zone focusing was the classic approach but these days af is generally quick enough that you shouldn't need it.
 
What Hoppy says.

Old MF lenses tend to have a much longer "throw" from close to infinity, meaning that the ring needs to be turned more to change the focal distance than an AF lens of similar length.

As Alex has pointed out, modern AF is so fast and accurate that it can be trusted in most situations. You have options then - either pre-focus on a zone and leave the DoF to absorb any discrepancies (stop down a bit to increase the chance) or trust the AF and practise your technique, either shooting from the hip for subtlety or a quick snap.

If your camera has a fold out screen and live view, use that in conjunction with a radio remote release to improve your aim and still be subtle.
 
While shooting from the hip can be easy enough to get to an accurate level with a bit of practice it is still difficult to focus on something from the hip so in that case I prefer zone focusing.
If shooting through viewfinder then yes AF is fast enough.

(Saying that, I actually use a compact with a zone focus option so that combined with small sensor means focusing is never an issue for me!)
 
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