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08-19-2011, 12:22 AM
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#1 | | Head Moderator
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| Night Shots and Focusing
So while I'm familiar with doing video shoots at night as there's usually a fair amount of light that can be used to properly focus, I'm a noob at photography at night... particularly long exposure shots of things like the night sky where there's usually too little light to properly set your focus. Supposing I want to take a long exposure of the stars and I'm unable to set my focus, are there any tricks that can be used? I've tried a few different methods and while using autofocus seems to yield the best results, I'm still noticing that the camera will be somewhat out of focus.
Any suggestions or tricks?
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08-19-2011, 01:07 AM
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#2 | | ...in the world.
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Manual focus?
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08-19-2011, 02:01 AM
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#3 | | VLS Moderator
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Manual focus your lens to infinity, or use live view.
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08-19-2011, 07:18 AM
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#4 | | resident Oil Guru
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Let Autofocus do it's "sweep" and let go when it goes to infinity. If you use the sight glass it may not be accurate enough. Posted via RS Mobile | |
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08-19-2011, 09:24 AM
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#5 | | Head Moderator
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| Quote:
Originally Posted by Senna4ever  Manual focus your lens to infinity, or use live view. | Sorry, I should have said that my current lens has an infinity ring for the focus pull. Maybe I'm just not used to shooting the night sky but I'll post a couple photos when I get home for you guy to judge whether it's just my imagination if they're out of focus or not. Posted via RS Mobile | |
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08-19-2011, 10:22 AM
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#6 | | Diagonally parked in a parallel universe
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try getting a super bright flash light or laser pointer and point that off into the distance. that should give you a fairly decent focus point.
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08-19-2011, 01:57 PM
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#7 | | resident Oil Guru
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Laser pointer! Nice idea Posted via RS Mobile | |
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08-19-2011, 03:52 PM
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#8 | | VLS Moderator
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Using a laser pointer may also be illegal depending on where you're pointing it.
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2007 Volvo V50
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R.I.P. 1997 Lexus ES300.
R.I.P. 1989 Acura Legend Coupe LS.
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08-19-2011, 04:59 PM
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#9 | | RS has made me the bitter person i am today!
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now what?
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08-21-2011, 06:50 PM
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#10 | | Diagonally parked in a parallel universe
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| Quote:
Originally Posted by N.V.M. | theres a difference between pointing a laser into the sensor and pointing it off into the distance.
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09-01-2011, 07:40 AM
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#11 | | Snapping away
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This relates to focusing so i didnt want to start a new thread. The Problem With The Focus-Recompose Method
How do you focus on a subject's eyes? I always used the focus-recompose method, but not at f/1.4 like the article proposed in its example, so not quite as thin but still could be OOF at time i suppose. Posted via RS Mobile | |
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09-02-2011, 01:27 AM
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#12 | | VLS Moderator
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Originally Posted by ddr How do you focus on a subject's eyes? I always used the focus-recompose method, but not at f/1.4 like the article proposed in its example, so not quite as thin but still could be OOF at time i suppose. | You can always focus by magnifying a portion of your scene via live view. This method is easier if you have a higher resolution back LCD screen and an LCD viewfinder like a Hoodman Hoodloupe or Zacuto Z-Finder...and of course, live view functionality.
The new Hasselblad H4D medium format digital body has accelerometers built into the body and will detect how much you've moved the camera during recomposing and automatically adjust the focus. It's a pretty useful function that I've use quite often when shooting medium format and I hope will work its way into 35mm based DSLR's soon. Hasseldlad's probably patented the technology though.
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2007 Volvo V50
Taken by ex: 2005 Toyota Prius.
R.I.P. 1997 Lexus ES300.
R.I.P. 1989 Acura Legend Coupe LS.
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09-05-2011, 06:06 PM
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#13 | | Snapping away
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so what's a good way to focus on a subject's eyes? place an AF point on one and crop afterwards if it's not exactly the way one likes the framing? i can start to see where more AF points can come in handy. time to use a DOF calculator to put this into perspective ...
that hasseldlad tech is quite interesting
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