Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/07/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Jul 24, 2006, at 5:08 PM, Adam Bridge wrote: > Well I can't move the autofocus position to ANY location on the screen > but I have a wide variety on the 1Ds Mk II, Doug, that would put the > focus where you would be likely to have them. It does work. Or can > manually focus and use focus confirmation to mark the place where the > camera finds the image to be in focus. > > Adam > OK... let me see if I can explain this more clearly. I want to be able to focus quickly, accurately, and simultaneously anywhere and everywhere on the viewscreen. My subjects are very active, even when they appear to be sitting still. They might yawn, turn their head, shift weight from one foot to the other all in fractions of a second, each time shifting the plane of best focus. The eye could be anywhere, at any time so I cannot pick a particular focus point to watch. For example, are there any focus points at this pheasant's eye? Recall that this is exactly as I saw it in the viewfinder, no cropping: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/phasianidae/rnph01.html In addition, I often watch multiple points or regions for optimum focus, in this case, eye, back, and tail: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/corvidae/grja00.html and with this bird, near eye, beak, 'ear' tufts, shoulder: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/strigidae/eeow02.html beak, eye, neck: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/accipitridae/coha03.html eye, chest, shoulder, fruit, toes: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/thrushes/amro05.html eye, beak, neck, wing, particularly as it twists, dips and flicks feathers while preening: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/tetraonidae/sogr01.html http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/tetraonidae/sogr02.html from tip of beak to tip of tail: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/tyrannidae/blph01.html beak, eye, neck, back: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/meleagridae/witu10.html eye, nose, paw, and as much of the seed pod as possible: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/mammals/rodents/cgsq02.html eye, nose, beak and shoulder in lower right corner: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/accipitridae/haha00.html eye, beak, neck, back as much of wings and tail as possible: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/thrushes/mobl00.html These areas aren't all in focus by accident; I'm watching all of these points simultaneously and shifting my position or waiting until the bird lines itself up with my focus plane. When everything comes together my shutter finger has to respond immediately; the fraction of a second used shifting the view for optimum composition is enough time for all sorts of stuff to shift out of the focus plane, and to watch this many regions simultaneously I'd rather use a viewscreen that shows me clearly and unambiguously where stuff is in or out of focus, all over the viewscreen all at once. Let me be clear about this: these areas aren't all in focus by accident. Perhaps my needs are more specialized than the majority of camera users' needs, but there is no AF camera yet made that has focus points covering the entire viewscreen nor is there an AF camera yet made that can have enough simultaneous active focus points nor is there an AF camera yet made that includes the optimizing algorithm in my brain that can determine which of several active focus points are the most critical ones, and an AF camera in manual mode with its compromised viewscreen is not optimum for the kind of photos I want to make. Doug Herr Birdman of Sacramento http://www.wildlightphoto.com