manual focus, how on earth do you nail it?

joescrivens said:
:cuckoo:

I think the word I am looking for is .............

............. Anyway,
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Seriously, why can't you see that Byker actually trying to help instead of just taking negative stuff from his post?

Even after you have a pop at him he still tries to help. Is it any wonder you are struggling to get answers with that attitude?
 
Well I think we have answered his question. to be honest I think this thread is a pretty comprehensive review on how to work manual foucs on a modren DSLR, I've certianly enjoyed reading some of the other peoples posts.

Cheers Stuart
 
joescrivens said:
Ha, yeah 1 meter long!

I gave a really poor example there. I guess what I mean to say is, how do you know you have nailed the focus on the right bit just through the screen, the subject always seems in focus because it's so small it's hard to tell.

Easiest way to describe it is that what looks in focus to my eye at 100, if I then zoom in 10x in live view I can see actually isn't
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More than likely that is down to camera movement of some sort.
 
stu_the_flat said:
Well I think we have answered his question. to be honest I think this thread is a pretty comprehensive review on how to work manual foucs on a modren DSLR, I've certianly enjoyed reading some of the other peoples posts.

Cheers Stuart
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What do you mean by that - care to explain so others can be enlightened by the correct procedure.
 
tiler65 said:
What do you mean by that - care to explain so others can be enlightened by the correct procedure.
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I didn't think we had to come up with a correct procedure! I don't think there is one, but we have talked about the system the camera uses to confirm focus, other systems available, different focusing screens, auto conformation, Beeping Canons, dioptre adjustments, hyper focal distances and expected depths of field, burst shots while adjusting focus, moving the prisms, vision and practice.

Plenty of information on this thread!

Stuart
 
RichardtheSane said:
Seriously, why can't you see that Byker actually trying to help instead of just taking negative stuff from his post?

Even after you have a pop at him he still tries to help. Is it any wonder you are struggling to get answers with that attitude?
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If Byker and I are having a dispute then leave that to us, no need to get involved, posts like this just make a mountain into a molehill.

thanks :thumbs:
 
RichardtheSane said:
Seriously, why can't you see that Byker actually trying to help instead of just taking negative stuff from his post?

Even after you have a pop at him he still tries to help. Is it any wonder you are struggling to get answers with that attitude?
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:agree:
 
tiler65 said:
More than likely that is down to camera movement of some sort.
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you reckon?

how about when something is really far away and it's so small it's hard to see in the viewfinder, i find this really hard to focus using manual until i zoom in on live view
 
stu_the_flat said:
I didn't think we had to come up with a correct procedure! I don't think there is one, but we have talked about the system the camera uses to confirm focus, other systems available, different focusing screens, auto conformation, Beeping Canons, dioptre adjustments, hyper focal distances and expected depths of field, burst shots while adjusting focus, moving the prisms, vision and practice.

Plenty of information on this thread!

Stuart
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Couldn't agree more. One of my favourite lenses is my old adaptall 25mm, which means manual everything on camera. Lots helpful info here.
 
Could anyone with a focus screen for the 5D Mark II which is designed to aid manual focus post a link please?

The Ee-S looks to be for the 5D, so it's not clear that it would be compatible with the 5D Mark II (even if it's a perfect physical fit, it might presumably b****r up metering) - actually, just found that it is not compatible.

I used to have a split prism Canon screen on my 1D3, and that worked reasonable well, but required centre weighted metering to be used - not a problem really.
 
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cliff mautner from kelbytraining.com says that when shooting wide open on most lens you should select the focus point closest to your object of focus, to avoid any movement of the sensor relative to the subject plane. That should help nail focus in AF. In MF I would go with a split prism focussing screen, but I doubt at 50mm it would be more accurate than AF (if it was available).
 
stu_the_flat said:
But if the object really far away then your lens is just set to infinity foucs?

Stuart
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ok, thats a new one on me. Has to be really really far for that though right?

right time for some examples

auto focus on the battery
auto.jpg


manual focus on the battery
manual.jpg


it the viewfinder it looked very much in focus, but i could move my lens quite a bit each way and it still looked in focus so how do i know without doing the auto thing which i think i may as well switch to auto for do i know excatly when to stop moving the focus ring
 
are you on a tripod?

To test this you need to be as static as possible mirror up etc
 
Also there is a give away as to where your focus is..........look at the photograph frame and notice how they are not in the same focal range.....I suspect you are missing your target in manual focus
 
Joe, looking at your examples I would have to say your problem is almost certainly the Dioptre adjustment on your viewfinder. Get that sorted and try again. There are various methods to do this, from memory I used a known sharp autofocus lens, tripod and remote release to ensure I had, as far as was possible, a focused shot (trusting the autofocus system of course) I then looked through the viewfinder and tweaked the dioptre, checked again with liveview x10. I then swapped to a MF lens and tried a shot with this and checked it via tethered shooting on my laptop. I basically kept doing this sort of thing until my MF shots were in focus and I was happy with it.
 
Roughly speaking infinity focus is over 20' (5M) but its probably dependant on the lens

A quick way to check is to use the range finder, if the range finder and your eye disagree then you know you have got a problem.

If your 100% sure its as sharp as you can get it to your eye and you have set the dioptre so it is good for your eye then I would say the screen on your view finder is miss-calibrated,

I will describe how corrected this on a Nikon system but it might be different for canon. Therefore if I where you I would ignore the advice I and about to give you!

Get something like AA batteries one and make sure on of them is unique, line them up so they are in a row, focus on the unique one. Take photo, see where the point of focus lies.

Take off the lens of your camera and lift the mirror you will see two screws on the right hand side, the back one is to adjust the autofocus, Do not under any circumstances touch this screw! As far as I am aware if it is moved then the camera would need to go back to the manufacture to be fixed.

The front screw is the manual focus; it simply moves the focusing screen in the view finder up and down, the screw should only need to be moved 1-5 degrees, simply you have to move the screw, take a shot of the batteries and then readjust the screw until the unique battery is the one in focus,

Hope that helps

Stuart
 
One other point.........maybe this has nothing to do with it................but have you micro adjusted anything with your lens with the 5DII?
 
The thing is though STE in the viewfinder the battery looks in focus along quite a range of twisting the focus ring. I'll take shots of the whole range and show you what I mean.

All of these shots look in focus on the viewfinder as I turn the focus ring just a little, yet clearly only few are, are my eyes just broken?

2-3.jpg

1-3.jpg

3-3.jpg

4-2.jpg
 
tiler65 said:
One other point.........maybe this has nothing to do with it................but have you micro adjusted anything with your lens with the 5DII?
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yeah the lens I am using is microadjusted is this anything to do with it?
 
There's nothing wrong with your eyes, but as someone else has suggested, digital SLRs just don't have the right focussing screen for precise manual focus.
 
still looks like camera shake to me......

look at the front edge of the dresser in #1 & #4.............almost identical - but the battery not.

You haven't said if you are using a tripod, mirror lock up and remote release ---- to pixel peep like this everything has to be like a laboratory.
 
tiler65 said:
still looks like camera shake to me......

look at the front edge of the dresser in #1 & #4.............almost identical - but the battery not.

You haven't said if you are using a tripod, mirror lock up and remote release ---- to pixel peep like this everything has to be like a laboratory.
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none of this but I am shooting at 1/200 so i can't see camera shake doing much at that focal range at 50mm, can you?
 
As tiler65 says go get a tripod, it really is a necessity. You don’t want to go poking around the inside of your camera based in photos that have not been taken in controlled conditions.

The range finder just tells you how far away you are from the “thing” you want to focus on, it will then come up with a nice wee display telling you what way to turn your focusing ring to achieve focus.

Stuart
 
joescrivens said:
If Byker and I are having a dispute then leave that to us, no need to get involved, posts like this just make a mountain into a molehill.

thanks :thumbs:
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Didn't think we were, I'm not anyway. I never get upset on forums as it's too easy to take words the wrong way.

Do you wear glasses, or could it be the dioptic adjustment is out slightly. I don't think they have a neutral position but I knocked mine out once and it took me a few shots to figure out why things looked out of focus, but came out allright. Then I had to wind it until things looked the same as the camera thought was in focus.

There's a company that makes split prism focussing screens
http://www.katzeyeoptics.com/
 
joescrivens said:
hmmm, so it does. ermm.. whats the point in that?

I thought manual focus was about you deciding when something was in focus, if you wait for the beep aren't you just doing autofocus anyway?
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What about the cases when you don't have AF - like lens on extension tube or macro bellows? This is where AF indicator is of great help.

However to answer your original question, I'd say that if you want MF then you need to look at changing the focus screen to something like Katz Eye.
 
Ok will try it on a tripod after work. But what I don't get is

over a few mm change of my focus ring it still looks entirely in focus inside my viewfinder - within this range there is a point where is is actually in focus - but how will putting it on a tripod change that? it's still going to look in focus in my viewfinder across that few mm but in rel life it wont be in focus across that whole range - right?
 
Byker28i said:
Didn't think we were, I'm not anyway. I never get upset on forums as it's too easy to take words the wrong way.

Do you wear glasses, or could it be the dioptic adjustment is out slightly. I don't think they have a neutral position but I knocked mine out once and it took me a few shots to figure out why things looked out of focus, but came out allright. Then I had to wind it until things looked the same as the camera thought was in focus.

There's a company that makes split prism focussing screens
http://www.katzeyeoptics.com/
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I do wear glasses yes. But f the dioptic is accurate this won't affect it will it?
 
stu_the_flat said:
I've just looked and for some resoan (probably dull and technical) Katzeye don't make a spilt prisim for the Canon 5d Mk II
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This is probably because Canon sells its own screens for 5D (at least I read as much on some forums explaining why KatzEye does not do screens for FF Pro SLRs)
 
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joescrivens said:
Ok will try it on a tripod after work. But what I don't get is

over a few mm change of my focus ring it still looks entirely in focus inside my viewfinder - within this range there is a point where is is actually in focus - but how will putting it on a tripod change that? it's still going to look in focus in my viewfinder across that few mm but in rel life it wont be in focus across that whole range - right?
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If you can see the tip of that battery is in focus through a viewfinder, handheld, then you have better eyesight than an owl.
 
joescrivens said:
Ok will try it on a tripod after work. But what I don't get is

over a few mm change of my focus ring it still looks entirely in focus inside my viewfinder - within this range there is a point where is is actually in focus - but how will putting it on a tripod change that? it's still going to look in focus in my viewfinder across that few mm but in rel life it wont be in focus across that whole range - right?
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You may find that its the way you hold your camera, that by moving your arm to turn the focusing ring your are moving the camera by a few millimetres. You can't say that’s not the case until you have it safely in a tripod.

Probably your are coming up against the problem of the increased depth of field, that is where you need to relay on the focus indicator/ rangefinder. And split prisim if you have got one.

Stuart
 
Re split screens. I looked into them and to be honest, didn't fancy the fitting procedures, but more worrying was the affect some of them have on metering. Whereas they obviously work for some people I honestly don't think they are necessary for manual focusing, I manage quite well without. (I think! :gag:)

Since posting on this I've noticed a sudden jump on my flickr. If it's people on here looking, I have to say most of what you've been looking at isn't manual focus! :razz::D
 
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