Any tips for fast focus on moving subjucts?

-- Craig (craigsmith@hotmail.com), January 23, 2002

Answers

I'd be very interested in this too.When it comes to tricky focusing I have to say I revert to my Nikon F5.

I've broken my foot so I'm going to have to think up a load of questions to releive the bordom!

-- Phil Kneen (philkneen@manx.net), January 23, 2002.

It's very difficult with a RF - I usually resort to "zone" focussing or the old trick of pre-focussing on a spot and clicking when your subject hits the spot.

-- Giles Poilu (giles@monpoilu.icom43.net), January 23, 2002.

I "swath" focus. That is I will track the subject with the rangefinder patch and anticipate when the two images will come together on a high-contrast portion of the image. For a moving body it would be the line of the face. I trip the shutter just as the images align (which is easy with the Softie). This can be done successfully up to the 90 mm focal length on a 0.85X body although I wouldn't trust my eyes with the 135. Also, I usually restrict my aperture down to F2.8 or smaller to get a "touch" of DOF to account for any slight mis-calculations when I trip the shutter.

That or I throw the shot away... which is something I'm use to doing on a regular basis.

-- John (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), January 23, 2002.

How the hell did you do that? Kicking yourself for dropping your camera in the sea?

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 23, 2002.

I've asked that question and gotten a number of answers that have never been satisfying. Most of the suggestions were to zone-focus, which implies using DOF to eliminate the need to spot focus. This is of course at odds with all the Bokeh talk, which implies wide apertures and shallow DOF. AF, even with multi-point sensors, still forces compositional compromises, but it is the only viable way I've found to achieve sharp results using longer lenses and/or wider apertures for subject isolation with moving targets. Certainly no one could ever convince me of the rationale behind their disgust with a single-central-AF-sensor but love for the single-central- rangefinder-patch. All told, why I love the Leica M for its compactness as a travel outfit, where I usually have the leisure to focus on near and far objects then adjust DOF using the scales and recompose, and rarely shoot small and erratically-moving subjects.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), January 23, 2002.

Craig,

When fast-moving subjects have been moving toward, away, or diagonally relative to my position, I go the zone-focusing route, usually pre-focusing on something stationary, if available.

When the subjects are moving parallel to my position, I usually try to follow-focus, panning with the subject. You can freeze the subject or use a slow-shutter speed to render a relatively sharp subject against a blurred background. The latter conveys a nice sense of motion or energy.

I used these techniques quite a bit this past Autumn while photographing my daughter's cross-country team.

Good luck.

-Nick

-- Nicholas Wybolt (nwybolt@earthlink.net), January 23, 2002.

While I'm relatively new to the M, I suspect the "tip" here is "practice." Follow-focus on any manually-focused camera takes a bit of practice to get the hang of, and the more one practices the art, the better one gets.

If you're in a situation where you can actually anticipate the action, start with focusing on where the moving subject will first appear, and then on where they will exit what might be called the shot zone. That gives you the two end points of the focus rotation on the lens, and you can "memorize" those end points. The speed of travel will determine how quickly you rotate the focus through that range. While there is likely to be some lack of precision, that can be reduced, I'd think, with practice.

Or, it may be a case where "f8 and be there" (or AF) is the better approach. ;-)

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), January 23, 2002.

Time ago Al Smith came up with this way of prefocusing or better say blind focusing, what you need is a tab focusing lens and a lot of practice, the idea is to memorize tap position acording to distances, so when you figure out a shoot take lens tab to position and shoot, can be faster than AF, but a lot of practice is needed, unfortunately every lens moves diferent while focusing, so you can only specialice in one at a time, of course wide angles work better.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), January 23, 2002.

Rob,I was at the local climbing wall last night,decided to climb a 'high-ish' route to test my nerve(which seems to have gone out the window of late)in training for some ice-climbing at the end of march.I got to about 30 feet and bottled it and decided it was time to go down.Go down I did-at about 70 mph! My hands were so soaked in sweat that I just couldn't hold.Oh how we laughed on the way to hospital,the sight of 6'1'',17 stone Phill flying through the air like a huge seal with wings!

So,loads of time to do all that slide scanning and think up some new project ideas.

-- Phill Kneen (philkneen@manx.net), January 23, 2002.

> ...where I usually have the leisure to focus on near and far objects then adjust DOF using the scales and recompose... <

Jay, sorry could you explain "..then adjust DOF using the scales and recompose". I would have thought that once youve focused on your target with the double image lining up. that it would only be a case of setting the aperture and shutterspeed (or visa versa). there shouldnt be any need to recompose.

-- sparkie (sparkie@mailcity.com), January 23, 2002.

The answer for me is to stick with one (tabbed) lens and learn (by feel) where the focus distances are. I have to say this is a whole lot easier than some of the posters are making out. I do it all the time with my 35. Start off with the easy ones - straight down is 1.2m etc. Once you know what this means and how this feels, move on to a few more positions. Pretty soon you'll have a few fixed points you know and you can start filling in the gaps. What is absolutely fatal is flitting from one lens to another while you're learning. If your lens is tabless (a new 50 summicron, for example) you can fit a lens tab of sorts. Either do it the "Konnerman" way - using a cable tie - or my way (which really helps with my 90 summicron) which is to use a bicycle pump tie - basically a more robust version of Lutz's recommendation which comes with a plastic "nipple" which you can file down into a finger tab shape if you find that helps. As for zone focusing - if you think about it, all focusing is zone focusing - more or less... I can honestly say focussing with my 35 is a whole lot quicker and surer than I could ever manage with an slr - but only if I use the feely-touchy technique - if I forget (which I still occasionally do) and go back to checking the r/f patch everytime, it drives me nuts.

-- steve (stephenjjones@btopenworld.com), January 23, 2002.

Jay (I believe) is describing zone focussing - say you are shooting a football game goal mouth from the side line, simply focus on the near post (example 15 metres) then the far post (example 20 metres). Now using your DOF scale on the lens set the distance so that both these readings are covered by the aperture in question. Everything within this "zone" should be in focus.

Or for example for street shooting have a look at your 35mm DOF scale - at F5.6 set the lens to 3 metres and you will see that anything between roughly 2 - 5 metres will be in focus. Let DOF do the work for you.

-- Giles Poilu (giles@monpoilu.icom43.net), January 23, 2002.

Good advice so far. My top seven:
1) rapid to-fro focussing
2) practise with moving subjects as well as by moving forward and backwards yourself
3) practise pre-focussing by guesstimating distances
4) Shade (for the M6)
5) pre-focus, then move along with the subject (children, etc.)
6) tabs (even self-made ones, from cable ties for instance - I've used tabs of up to 8" for follow-focus on movie cameras for documentaries)
7) practise

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), January 23, 2002.

A good trick that was only briefly mentioned by Lutz is to move around with the subject. Focus on the moving person with the rangefinder patch and then move with them. If they move away from you move toward them to keep the distance the same. Quickly using the rf patch to check your focus and move in or out accordingly.

I do this all the time shooting parades, news, etc - anything where people are moving quickly and it works well.

good luck, john

-- john locher (locherjohn@hotmail.com), January 23, 2002.

Lots of good advice above. Here's another suggestion: switch to an SLR for these shots. With manual focus and a bright focussing screen, you can keep your subject anywhere in the frame, continually tweak focus, and shoot at will.

-- Douglas Kinnear (douglas.kinnear@colostate.edu), January 23, 2002.

The best answer so far is "Practice". The only two things I would add in are:

1) Practice a lot. In time you'll learn how much to move your lens' focus barrel to get it on point.

2) Don't be too concerned about having the image perfectly lined up on the rf -- close on the M is generally close enough, even when you're up close.

:) Cheers,

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), January 23, 2002.

Sparkie: Somone explained what I meant pretty well. I focus on the nearest and farthest points of the shot then pick the distance setting which will cause those 2 distances to fall between the DOF marks for an aperture 1 stop wider than the one I'm actually using, as I believe the DOF scales are a bit "optimistic".

Others: I'm a devotee of the Leica M, but in my hands an AF camera just nails moving subjects with no contortions or fanfare, so that is what I choose if I'm expecting a lot of that kind of action. However when I'm with the Leica M and a moving subject presents itself, I make do the best I can using some of those same excellent tricks.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), January 23, 2002.

The move with the subject thing - I must have a really bad sense of distance because I've never been able to make it work or, at least, I've never felt confident it was working. The same holds for estimating distance. I like to focus and shoot, but it does sometimes happen that I miss the shot. That's when I wish I had an AF camera.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 23, 2002.

Rob,

Just try to keep the size of the moving subject you once focussed on constant - same size, same distance. You will keep half an eye on the rf patch, anyway...

...and here is # 8 (for righteyed shooters: keep your left eye open while focussing! This works better with higher viewfinder magnification and somehow lets you anticipate much faster direction and amount of focussing necessary. May-be this is due to the inherent 3D viewing...? Give it a try!

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), January 23, 2002.

I started out shooting ballroom dance competitions with an M6 and a 90 Summicron. When I became successful enough to turn pro, I switched to Nikon AF, first an N90S and then an F5. I have always mildly regretted my cowardice in not sticking with the Leica to shoot dance. I got many fine images with the Leica, almost all shot with the Summicron at maximum aperture. [And let me add that I get a fairly high percentage of out-of-focus pictures with the Nikons, even after using them for years; but that is a subject for another post.]

My trick with the 90 was to rigorously restrict the distances at which I would shoot. As I wanted to fill the frame as much as possible, anything over about 30 feet was too far; as I would not use a picture where I had cut off hands or feet, anything closer than about 20 feet was too close. The focusing movement within that range was small, and therefore quick. Of course ballroom dance is a relatively easy subject as sports go: there are moments of stillness as well as great speed, and much of the dance follows a predictable pattern. If my interest had been in photographing, say, basketball, I don't think I would even have tried the Leica.

David Mark

-- David Mark (dbmark@ix.netcom.com), January 23, 2002.

David Just to reinforce what you mentioned in passing - I used to have an F100+851.8afd as my basis for dance photography. Not only did I get quite a few out of focus shots with this setup, it also wouldn't allow me to take photographs as the af hunted - in the end I gave up and used it in manual focus mode.

-- steve (stephenjjones@btopenworld.com), January 24, 2002.