Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/12/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Thank you Jim for revealing what we Brookies consider infinity and how we treat infinity focus "a la Brooks". Joseph Codispoti Class of 72 In a message dated 97-12-17 04:07:50 EST, you write: << After reading some of the WA voodoo stuff, it dawned on me that I learned something at Brooks that I involuntarily do. I never ever focus a lens at infinity. I was taught, at Brooks, that there is no such thing as infinity. And, of course, there isn't. If you think about it, infinity is not one mile, not 100 miles, not a million miles, it's forever away from you. Otherwise it wouldn't be infinity. Now we all know that focus extends 1/3 in front of and 2/3 behind the subject. So if your lens is set at infinity, your focus is 1/3 in front of infinity and 2/3 behind infinity. Not very logical. So I was taught to ALWAYS, when focusing on far away subjects (distant landscapes, etc.) take the lens to the infinity stop, then back-off a little. This puts a lens' depth of field into a real world (as opposed to imaginary world) perspective. Some lenses, especially when using extenders, focus past (yes past) infinity. That's a real oxymoron. Past infinity. Only Steven Hawking knows about this. Anyway, this is usually with very long lenses where you can actually focus on that distant mountain, or the moon. In this case, you can focus where you want so that your depth of field will take care of what you want it to take care of (it's late.) Jim >>