At what age did you start to have trouble focusing?

[Dave Jenkins]

Early-mid 50s for me.

 

[jbhthescots]

At about 16....when I started drinking.

 

[iphoenix]

Just turned 69 and am starting to have a problem with the early "M"s. The M6 is easiest of the rangefinders, but I find my "RE" SLR with an f2 or better lens is the easier.

 

[Tompas]

Needed glasses to read and (a different pair) for driving at night at around 40. Now, 7 years later, I need stronger glasses to read but no glasses for driving anymore. Weird.

When photographing I don't wear glasses, but autofocus helps -- sometimes more, sometimes less.

My wife had her eyes laser corrected years ago. I'm to much of a coward for that, or it's not bad enough yet.

 

[Dogman]

I've needed distant vision correction since age 18. By my mid-30's I needed progressive lenses to maintain both distant and close vision simultaneously. But I was still able to manually focus cameras okay until about age 50, at which point I was no longer able to get consistent results. I bought my first autofocus 35mm camera around that time and I was amazed at how much sharper my photos became. Focusing medium format cameras wasn't as difficult for me because I used them on tripods for stationary subjects most of the time. I could take my time and focus more precisely with these cameras.

Because I loved them so much, I kept using my Leica rangefinders until around age 60 when it became apparent to me that any autofocus camera I used consistently gave me sharper pictures than all my manual focus cameras. At that point, I stopped using my Leicas and all other film cameras and switched totally to autofocus digitals.

 

[Roger Hicks]

At about 16....when I started drinking.

Dear John,

Ah... A late developer, then?

Cheers,

R.

 

[pvdhaar]

I started needing reading glasses shortly after turning 50. Still have no problem focusing through OVFs or EVFs without glasses a couple of years on. But LCD-only cameras have become a decided inconvenience..

 

[oftheherd]

I am approaching 70 and I've never had problems focussing, this is probably because I was a microbiologist for 44yr and used a microscope daily. As a microscopist focussing almost becomes something that is done instinctively and the same technique of focussing is the same with a camera. The technique is to focus in and out a few times quickly and with practice the brain instinctively recognises the in-focus point.

For the 'middle aged' whose eyes have deteriorated don't give up hope, at my current age I am lucky in that my eyesight has improved over time from mixed long sight/short sight to only needing glasses for reading.

I had to start with reading glasses just before 40. My job changed and I began sitting at a desk reading reports.

But it never changed my ability to focus my SLR or my Super Press 23. I had learned greyelm's technique when I began trying to focus in near darkness. That hasn't failed me yet. My close vision has changed some, but no problems with cameras. Yet. My night driving requires more concentration. I was told that was astigmatism.

 

[oftheherd]

It's interesting (or not) that the degree of middle-age sight relates to the brightness of available light. In full sunlight I can read a newspaper without reading glasses -- the pupil stops down, so to speak, and I get greater depth of field. In a darkroom lit with a safelight I need powerful reading glasses

An optometrist I once worked with mentioned that when he was in school, his eyes were so bad he had to make a very small aperture with his fingers and palm to read what was on the blackboard. Finding out that was fixable with glasses was one of the things that got him interested in becoming an optometrist.

I would guess what you are experiencing is akin to that. You are using a smaller 'aperture' and in creasing the depth of focus at the retina.