Tracking focus with manual focus rangefinder lenses

[tlitody]

How easy or difficult is it to track focus of moving subjects with a manual focus rangefinder? I'm thinking primarily of people walking towards or away from from the camera so not moving fast but fast enough to need to track focus..

 

[easyrider]

I have always found it better to pre-focus --- i.e. if you are expecting someone to walk past a certain point, focus on someone else walking there or an object like a hydrant or a chair. Same is true when shooting sports. Pic a point where the action is likely to occur and set focus for that spot. Also, it is helpful, of course to stop down as far as possible.

I think tracking a moving target with a manual lens is far too difficult.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Forget about it... Prefocus with fast film and a small aperture, or call the Devil... (SLR)

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Jason Sprenger]

You anticipate as much as possible the motion of your subject and move or refocus as necessary to get the shot.

Like with anything, practice is the key to being effective. Lead the shot, that is, pre-focus ahead of framing and fine tune as you get the shot.

I generally have my lens at 3 or 5 meters depending what I'm after and I look to anticipate my framing before I raise the camera to my eye. Doing this, there's less to do when I take the shot.

It's not as easy to start at as with an auto-focus, but once accustomed, you can get shots that an auto-focus can't easily get, e.g. a subject sitting on a swinging swing.

Of course, with all that said, precise focus is not always an important feature of a photograph, particularly of a subject in motion.

 

[pvdhaar]

I never managed to track focus for people walking directly towards me. Especially with a rangefinder where I'm using wide to normal lenses and the subject needs to be relatively close to fill the frame. The change in subject distance is so fast that I can't keep the RF patch correctly aligned no matter how hard I try.. Best I can do is prefocus and wait until the double image lines up. Then trip the shutter.

 

[xxloverxx]

Pretty easy as long as you have ~1m DOF.

Focus on the subject walking towards you, then overdo it a bit. Click ~1 second after focusing and you'll be in focus.

If you can stop down enough, just overdo it right away and shoot. Or take full advantage of DOF.

 

[aizan]

it depends. if the aperture is at f2 and the subject is less than 2m away, forget it! not gonna happen if people are moving. if the situation allows, you can move along with them, but then you aren't changing focus.

if the aperture is stopped down to f5.6-11 and the subject is more than 2m away, it's a piece of cake. this is the comfort zone of tabbed lenses in general, i.e. 50mm or shorter.

 

[jsrockit]

http://www.markushartel.com/tutorials/camera-related/zone-focusing.html

 

[tlitody]

Thanks all for views on this. I guess I'm really thinking of people maybe 20 or 30 feet away and dof will be quite large. Someoine only 2 meters away would be too near to do this quickly enough as they would only need one step to half the distance ond that only takes less than a second.

 

[JohnnyT]

You put the lens to f16 ? ;p

Just kidding ! I think the best way is like they have previously said : Prefocus or guess-focus where you want to take the picture and when your subject come into place, align the last part and take it! ;0

 

[le vrai rdu]

Mo matter the aperture, you can focus quicly wide open, I use to set the lens at the infiny and then pull the tab until it is okay, doing this there is only one way to move the focusing tab preventing you to hesitate 😉

And just trust yourself and your eyes

Never understood why people buy some hight speed lenses and to quality camera and finder just to zone focus it

 

[former member]

I like to shoot at F4. I tend to pre-focus, and wait for the subject to come into the anticipated distance.

This is at F1.5, Canon 50/1.5 on a Bessa R2. Prefocused. The little girl is laughing and telling me "You can't get my picture, I'm too fast".

At F4, 1950's Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5, on the Nikon S2. Pre-focused.

 

[tlitody]

the swing shot is a really nice capture. The bokeh is verging on the swirly variety. I guess it does come down to a lot of pre-empting and setting aperture and focus to suit. Good thing is the controls are so easy on a rangefinder.

 

[kievman]

Well with the big contrasty patch on my Kiev RF's I have been able to focus track pretty easily. I did it last fall as I was photographing a woman playing with her dogs at a dog park and I was focus on the running dogs I have never been able to do that with any other RF, so Try a Kiev - Michael

P.S. Love the swing shot!!!!!!!!!!! - Brian

 

[ederek]

Great captures Brian, especially that shot on the swing!

kievman - funny, I just had the same experience last week at a dog park in Budapest. Shooting bridges and such with a 21mm (21P) and was around ISO 200 and 1/45 sec. Saw dog playing and snapped a photo - only to realize the dog was a complete blur. The dogowner was hoping to get some pics of Funki playing with ears flopping, so I offered to try, and put on the 50 lux. ISO 400 and 1/250 sec left me with about f4, so still plenty of DOF.

Attached is a cropped image I liked. The whole gallery is here:
http://ederek.smugmug.com/Travel/20100517-BudapestTara-Funki/12260641_UwM9n#874172427_UH9iQ

 

[LeicaFoReVer]

Yes especially if it is fast moving like dog or horse (I tried on horse), you need to kepp the shutter speed high too, and if you are in indoors, that is the nightmare. You need at least 800 iso...I found it really tough with RFs.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Very beautiful first shot, Brian... And great story... She looks like having a lot of fun while saying that! Great colors and composition too!

Cheers,

Juan