Do you prefocus?

[lellou]

I wonder how you focus when doing street photography.

I find it hard to focus fast with the QL17 GIII and I wonder how you do it or do you have many out of focus images?

/ Marcus

 

[TPPhotog]

I usually pre-focus mine at 10 feet for those grab and hip shots.

At first I found it a little difficult to compose and focus after using a SLR for so many years, but a little practice when sitting around doing nothing better works wonders 😉

Good luck and have fun 🙂


.... After thought .... for pre-focus I work between F8 and F16.

 

[hth]

I have only done little street photography, but I have not had much trouble with this. Simply set it to 5-10 meters in advance, depending on how close you plan to go. Use DOF of f5.6 or f8 (or more). If you get in another situation, (quickly) refocus the lens approximately using the scale. I seldom get images that are disturbingly our of focus. Only focus using the RF when you have the time, otherwise be prepared (pre-focused) for what you plan to shoot.

Now, getting over the shyness of using the camera on the street is a different matter. I can do it sometimes, but not consistently.

 

[ray_g]

I usually set my 35mm lens to hyperfocal distance. At f/8, the dof should be plenty enough.

 

[wyk_penguin]

for a sunny day with a 35mm lens and ISO 100 film, 1/50 f.8 and the lens set at the hyperfocal distance and then anything 3m away should be free of any shake and in perfectly acceptable focus (nice up to 8" X 12").

 

[onnovisser]

Yep, and since streetph. often means 35mm or wider, loads of DOF. But most importantly, shoot a lot and try and get a feel for your distance and focus without having to look at the lens/camera. Most of the photo's on aboutonno.tk were taken this way.. It's easy enough after a while! Go try it!

 

[taffer]

Always 🙂

Most of my shots with the traveling G-III Canonet from the pass the camera project were taken that way, at f/8-11 and with the focus set at around 3 meters, or closer while I was walking in some crowd... The wider the lens, the easier it gets.

 

[ray_g]

This is one advantage of RF's over SLR's. I tried prefocusing with SLR's in the past and while it works, the blurred VF image is bothersome, and can be dizzying after a day of photographing on the street 😉

 

[GeneW]

This is one advantage of RF's over SLR's. I tried prefocusing with SLR's in the past and while it works, the blurred VF image is bothersome, and can be dizzying after a day of photographing on the street 😉

I find the same thing. One thing I've never tried is using one of my external VF's on an SLR. With prefocusing I'll bet that would turn an SLR into a pseudo-rangefinder in terms of feel.

Gene

 

[Allen Gilman]

Pretty much the same as everyone else here. I think if you set 3 points to cover different ranges, you should be fine.

One thing that might help is just to do some practice at home. Try guessing the distance to certain objects, set a focus point, and you can check how close you're at. If you've got a depth of field scale on your lens, then you can see if you're in focus for any given f-stop. Seems awkward at first, but you get the hang of it.

 

[varjag]

I always prefocus; even when shooting with 50mm at 1.8 setting a distance at a best guess works good as a starting point.

As been mentioned prefocus works best with wider lenses; estimating distance even in close quarters is easy. With 35mm lens you often can determine the distance through an auxiliary finder: the distance to subject/area fitting in the longest dimension of view is roughly equal to its length. E.g. if an average person fits the borders tightly in the vertical format the distance is about 1.7-1.8 meters.

 

[stet]

I've tried to make my "working distance" 3 meters, so my lens is usually set to that. Also, when I'm walking around I'll sometimes test myself. Like, "that spot over there is 3 meters away," then check through the VF. I'm generally really bad at judging distance or space, but I'm nearly 100 percent now at guessing my working distance. I usually have the CV 35/2.5 on, so it's a quick adjust if I want to really focus, but I normally just let DOF handle that.

FWIW, I started testing my distance because I found I was learning more by testing myself on exposures.

 

[reagan]

Yep, like others, on the street I've been practicing at two distances - 1.2m and 3m at f8 or more.

I've also been playing/practicing with shooting "away from the eye," i.e. holding the camera at the shoulder, one hand it from the chest or stomach (a few even out to the side!) or from the hip. I like the candid shots. People seem to be more relaxed/natural if the camera is not at your eye. I also get some different looking angles, "shot from down here" or "over here" while still holding a normal conversation with your subject. It's fun.