Focusing techniques

[TobiasL]

I'm trying to learn different focusing techniques but found it quite confusing when I tried to read upon it. I don't understand the difference between scale focus, zone focus, hyperfocal and pre-focus. Are all these the same thing?

At the moment I usually use f/8-11 and set the focus on 1.5 meters if I'm guessing the subject will be about 1.5 meters distance. I'm guessing this is the pre-focusing technique.

 

[flip]

Yes.

One way is to focus on the thing you want in focus. Then, looking at your distance scale, find the numbers indicating your chosen aperture. Currently, every distance in that range is in focus. So, if you rotate the focal distance from center to the left number, you can get most of what is past that thing in focus. If this means that infinity is within the two values for your aperture, you can move the infinity towards the right number to maximize DOF. This, of course, assumes that you want the maximum in focus range.

 

[Roger Hicks]

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/ps how zone focus.html will probably tell you all you need to know.

Cheers,

R.

 

[TobiasL]

Thank you both for your explanations and the link. I think I got it now 🙂

So if I understood this correctly when I use my 35mm lens, set it to f/8 and set the focus at 2 meters then everything between 1.5 meters and 3 meters is in focus.

 

[ka7197]

So if I understood this correctly when I use my 35 mm lens, set it to f/8 and set the focus at 2 meters then everything between 1.5 meters and 3 meters is in focus.

Basically, yes. You understood correctly. Except it's more like 1.45 m to 3.3 m ... provided you're using your 35 mm lens on a 35-mm-format camera. A 35 mm lens used on other formats, focussed to 2 m at f/8, will yield different depth-of-field—more on a larger-format camera, less on a smaller-format camera (even when some clueless folks will try to tell you it was the other way around or didn't change at all).

But then for any practical intents and purposes, depth-of-field numbers mustn't be taken too scrupulous anyway. Determining depth-of-field with high accuracy is useful for educational purposes only (e. g. to verify you understood correctly) but not out in the field or streets when actually shooting. There, a rough estimation is all you'll ever need ... and that's what you get from the DOF scale on your lens' barrel.