in the old film days with a mechanical camera/lens we called this pre-focus. Doing weddings the rule was f5.6 everything 1/3 in front of the subject and everything 2/3 behind the subject would be in acceptable focus and it worked great. Now with the digital days I do trust the distance scale and it works great. For the record I think if you came from the film world that you do have a leg up on digital. Great video !!!!!!!
Dude, this is the first time I actually understood 100% of it. Bought a rangefinder film camera a few days ago and was pretty confused about the whole focus thing. Thanks!
I knew what zone focusing was and had an idea of how it works but what I was confused about was how I know the amount of range that's in focus at that particular aperture. I didn't know what the scale meant under the feet/meter scale and now it all makes sense. The only video that covered all of the aspects in full detail, I appreciate you!
No worries!! If you stay tuned, within the next couple of weeks, I will drop a video on "focus by feel," where you don't depend on zone focusing, you can do it through intuition, muscle memory, and feel :) Next level shit haha.
@@jaeAre200 Hell yeah bro, I just copped a leica Q - went from fuji to sony in seek of full frame cause leica seemed too overpriced for me, but I made the plunge on a great deal for the Q and so glad I did, I'm a huge fan of the analog/retro style of cameras. Haven't gone out to play yet with it but I wanted to learn as much as I could about manual focusing cause I want to prioritize that from now on for my street shooting. How do you incorporate your zone focusing at night? That could be another video. Btw, I saw you in one of lintaro's old videos a while back, nice to see you doing your own thing my man.
I do a quasi zone focus. When I bring my range finder to my eye, I'll do a "loose focus", even if the focus is not spot on. It's still within the "zone" or margin of error where zone focus takes over. If the person is far from me, I quickly throw my focus to near infinity and quickly bring it "closer" until I get it close to focus. If the person is near me, I do the opposite, I throw it to 3 feet (close focus) and quickly flick the focus further until I'm "near" focus. Hasn't failed me yet, and dont need to worry about "am I in zone or not". Unless I'm doing some incognito, hip firing kind of street photography.
hahaha, i'm glad this will help. And through my experience, the faster you shoot, the more you end up doing it and being alone :) Hashtag The Lone Shooter. Sorry, to the Mrs.
This was an awesome tutorial to watch. You didn't come off full of yourself. You spoke to, and not at us newbies to zone focusing. You made me want to purchase a manual lens for my dslr.
Your actually not explaining zone focus, your showing hyperfocal distance because you using the infinity mark, zone focus is using the lens movable distance scale to line up the chosen f stop with the fixed f stop scale then reading from left to right between the two f8 marks and that gives you your zone of focus, infinity focus and zone focus are two different approaches
The difference is almost semantics. And why I PERSONALLY feel there are good teachers and not so good teachers because one stresses overall comprehension of an idea vs little details to stress that don't play much signficance in the overall-understanding. The difference is simply using the infinity marker as your end point ("HyPeRFOcal DisTAncE") (as I start beginners off with in the beginning of the video) and then ultimately moving your "end point" or "zone" to the F Stop given ie F16 or F8 on the lens to whatever distance suits your needs (where I eventually move the discussion in the video when there is less light to give proper exposure. So maybe they didn't watch the entire video???) thats it!! haha. It's actually laughable how negligeable it is, when you know the difference. And if you physically show someone the difference on the lens between the 2, you would look like an idiot for even stressing the difference.
That's not at all true. Just because he's using infinity as the upper constraint of the focal zone, doesn't mean he's describing hyperfocal distance. To give you an example, on my canon FD 50mm f/1.8 lens, if I set my focus as he is showing here, with my aperture set at f/16, I have a focal zone ranging from ~2.5m to infinity. But the hyperfocal distance (calculated from the formula H=f^2/Nc+f, where f=50mm, N=f/16, c=0.029mm, giving H=50^2/(16x0.029)+50) is actually ~5.5m, meaning anything beyond this distance will be "acceptably" in focus. This doesn't mean that the range from 2.5m - 5.5m won't be in focus, but will be slightly less in focus than anything beyond the hyperfocal distance calculated. So he actually is describing zone focusing since he is discussing the ranges of focus for specific aperture stops, and not specifically the distance beyond which everything will be acceptably in focus. Hyperfocal distance is often confused to mean any focus extending out to infinity, but that is not accurate. Optics is the *focus* of my profession - see what I did there?
Thanks for this... I'm a total dummy and a newbie to photography and this video helped me understand what the focus scale on a lens actually tells you XD .. makes me a lot more confident that I can creatively compose a shot now without spending ages looking through the viewfinder and checking my DOF preview. Great little lesson.
Thanks for this video Jae, from one "dummy" to another. I used to shoot film back in the 70's and 80's but like most of us older farts, got away from it for a long time. I just ordered a Yashica Electro 35 GSN and never had a rangefinder before and sure never knew how to read all those hieroglyphics on the lens barrels. This was enormously helpful, thank you... stay safe during the CV pandemic!!!
Thank you for making this video! The visuals and the simple explanations gave me a little bit of confidence. Now to actually use the concepts ... stay tuned.
Mannnnnn...you're living your best life right now. That sounds sooo awesome. What a dream kit for most. I would love to get my hands on an M10D, basically a digital analog camera haha.
@@jaeAre200 I took some mind blowing pics today .. first day with it.. only thing is there is definitely not a lot of situations when it's mid day and bright outside when you can take full advantage of the .95 F stop... it's a shade/dark area aperture .. mostly it's useful at F8-11 range during the day.
I think zone focusing is still very applicable to digital slrs, as is hyper focus. I also love using a Ricoh GRiii because it's setup to show you your zones.
my question is this. I seta. zone on my m6- but then when i look through the viewfinder something clearly in that zone looks out of focus in range finder. should it theoretically look focused in viewfinder when using zone focusing?
I learned "Focus by Feel" after I took the photography class, and it's a crucial technique for street photography, without it I would have missed so many good memories captured. (M3 + 50mm lens)
Just started with my film photography journey and this video was extremely helpful! I would love it if you made a video on "how to focus by feel". Thanks so much!
This video was amazing. Great job with examples and explanation. You are helping make it possible for me to shoot my Leica M3 now without needing the camera fixed lol.
Nice to see you use an Olympus OM. Still the best SLRs made, in my opinion. I've had to resort to using zone focussing on occasions. I shoot live music in small, mostly badly lit venues around London. Usually I shoot digital, but also take my OM1 or OM2 to shoot B&W as well. A little while back I bought a Samyang manual focus lens, but DSLRs are terrible for focussing manually as they don't have fresnel or split screens like you get on the OM, so I've had to zone focus with it, shooting wide open, because of the low light. Thankfully it's a 14mm f/2.8, so really wide, which does make it easier, and I'm usually really close to the band. Unfortunately, the lens doesn't have a DoF scale on it so it's mostly guess work, but most of the shots are sharp enough. Anyway, it's only rock'n'roll.
Mannnn, I certainly do not envy you trying to zone focus in dim places. Thats rough. BUT, the good thing is you have these tools to lean back on. You sound like you know what youre doing, so I feel bad for those who just do digital and have to HEAVILY rely on their machinery instead of sometimes doing it the old school way. Oh, and the OM1 is just a sexy looking camera all together. I believe it is up there with the Leicas with best looking cameras.
@@jaeAre200 I'm old school because I am old (or at least was born quite a while back). I love the OM cameras and have been using them since the 70s - not the same one as that original one died from abuse, although I still have the corpse. These days I have 3 x OM1, 2 x OM2 and an OM40, plus lenses from 24mm f/2.8 up to 180mm f/2.8, plus a bunch of winders and a couple of flashes. I do need to stay away from eBay, but I can't resist a bargain. I have them in the knowledge that they will outlast any digital camera, just as film will out survive any digital files.
So glad to find this video. I recently acquired a a Kodak Signet 80, (1958 Rangefinder) I had been doing the whole focus via bringing the double image together FOR EVERY SINGLE shot... what a bunch of shit that was. Anyway, I’ll give this a try.👍
Hahaha, for streetphotography, I have a rule, if the camera is to your eye and you have to focus and compose it, your too slow. In a month or so, I will have my final "focus series" video out where you can focus by feel. So when the light goes down and that "zone" is narrow as fuck, you can still nail that focus at F4 and below :)
Great video. Thank you for sharing. I’m new to photography and I’ve just bought a Nikon z50 with a kit lens, DX 16-50mm. Can I do zone focusing with this kit lens? It does not have a ring to turn to infinitive. Should I buy a 35mm prime lense then? Please kindly advise. Thanks.
Great video! Might have been good to mention lens diffraction at f/16 so people are aware of the tradeoffs between improved zone distance and sharpness.
Great video! I unfortunately learned this the hard way with lots under focused behind the scenes shots with my telephoto. I’ve gotten better through trial and error, burb his definitely helps visualize and make more sense of the extreme narrowness of depth of field with longer lenses and shorter one as well. I definitely have to play around with this. I was actually looking for zone system videos to visualize my exposure and this popped up and is something I’ve wanted to learn more about but didn’t know the term.
Very fantastic video bro! What is the road we should go down with our m6 in order to intuitively grasp the concept of focusing by feel like you have in time? I really enjoyed the video
Good explanation but in f16, you didnt mention the shutter speed. Im shooting slr and f16 need a tripod. Just bought a 35 mm range finder and have not try in real world yet.
I shoot a old slr. And shot my first filmstock and it came back blurry... when i saw it was crisp in the viewfinder. So maybe that because of that case about slr cameras that you Said? And when it was crisp in viewfinder i felt the scale on the lens was of in distance compared to the real life. So could i be fooled by that stuff you explained about zone focusing on slr? Next filmstock i will try the zone focusing and trust the distance scale. And not always look for that crisp in the viewfinder. Best regards Alfons
hey there! this is the first time i learned about zone focusing, and i understood the basics of it from your video! but as with other videos or articles i've looked into, you all referred to a manual slr, so you have exact control over the focus range in that case. on the other hand, i got a konica c35 ef for my first film camera and it uses zone focusing (fixed? 4 different settings), but i have no control over aperture (i can lock exposure though) and shutter speed. do you have any insights how i can utilize zone focusing with this kind of camera? i'm still learning and practicing, but would greatly appreciate if you could give me some direction. thank you so much, i love your videos!
I just Repaired a Konica C35 V, the focus ring has 1meter,2m, 3m and infinity, the ring below this you set f-stop or auto . It’s a lovely little camera , I see C35 range finder doesn’t have this marked on the focus ring, measure 1m to an object put a black dot on the ring and the outer lens edge measure 2m to an object and put another mark on focus ring then do same for 3m and infinity will be full focus
Merci. I started to think that I was really stupid because I saw a lot video without understand. So, you saved me, even if it was english I understood a lot more than all the videos I saw before. :)
Well, you're not the only one, that's why I made this video because I felt stupid too. And I knew there was a better way to explain this haha. Glad the visuals help if my actual language didnt so much haha.
This vid really helped me get to grips with understanding zone focusing better. I have two questions: 1) what shutter speeds do you personally use when zone focusing? 2) I have a Minolta Hi-matic 7s ii with a fixed 40mm lens. Do you have any settings recommendations? I'm so new to photography but most vids are for 35mm lens. ✌🏻
Thank you!! I try not to shoot anything under 1/125 ss. As for the 40mm pancake style lenses, hmm...it's close to a 50mm so that "zone" becomes a little tight, so i would recommend trying to shoot at F16 IF YOU CAN on a sunny day, so you may have to lower your shutterspeed to 1/60th, which is still fine. OR start pushing your film +2 stops so your rating your 400 speed film at 1600 and that should let you shoot at F16 or so. Good luck! Have fun! Also, messing up a few rolls is just part of the process, so don't be discouraged. I shot 20 bad rolls until I figured out what the hell I was doing.
Quick question: when you showed the F8 distances, you shifted from infinity to 15 ft. how do you do that with the camera, when you're shooting? how do you get to pick whether your far distance is infinity or 15ft? sorry if that's a dumb question, it's the only part of the video I didn't understand!
I have a mirrorless camera. Namely, the Lumix S5. Do you recommend zone focusing for this type of camera? Or do you know of an autofocus mode that beats zone focusing on digital cameras?
Hey man, wicked video and a great explanation. Was just curious how you find exposure at f8 wandering round London, sounds like your pushing a stop or 2 most of the time on the stock itself but do you find you have issues with your shutter speed that you have to go a bit too slow to capture people wandering about without motion blur? Do you have a speed say 1/100-1/250th that you don't go slower than so you don't get heaps of motion blur? I have an M6 too and its great for shower shutter speeds and one of the advantages of a RF but just curious where you think the limit with what you can get away with is. Great channel though man your videos and thoughts about the analog life are real interesting/inspiring.
Hey no worries!! Yeah, unfortunately you still have to control shutter speed. So when I'm shooting my Leica M6, I'm only physically turning my shutter speed to match each lighting condition i walk into i.e.. shadow area, bright area etc. UNLESS you have a camera that is aperture priority, then my friend, you pretty much can point and shoot.
The idea is you're not moving the focus ring at all after you lined up the infinity symbol to the according aperture number on the lens. So typically, you move the focus ring slightly to the right (where the infinity symbol is) and you leave it there. According to if you're shooting at F8 or F16 etc etc. The diagram i showed you is ALL displayed on your manual focus lens. If you look at and study your lens and then watch my video, it should all make sense :) I'm sure it will click :)
Haha, thanks so much! It took a little while for me to think, "How can I make this to where a simple person like me could understand this??" Boom!! Appreciate the watch and you taking the time out to comment.
Thank you so much, I felt this video needed to be done and in a certain way that you should need to see this video ONCE and thats it. I hated youtubing 9 videos to figure this out. So I just figured it out myself haha.
jae rose I know exactly what you mean. Btw no idea why you don’t have a lot more followers. You got a great channel. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time anyway. Look forward to your next video 👊
@@TheLoneRangefinder Very very kind words. Thank you. Ehhh, in due time the followers will come I suppose. I'm not too worried about it. I have my own professional photography career I'm trying to worry about and this channel is my way of GIVING BACK to the photography and street photography genre that has helped me sooo much.
Thanks for the video man, I'm shooting a Pen F with a 24mm lens making it a 35/36mm equivalent and I'm trying to figure out how I'm supposed to zone focus with this thing. Anyone know if DOF is affected due to the crop? Not sure if I should be looking at the distances on the lens or if I'd have to be going based off what a 35mm lens would. Anyone know?
Hello jae! You said in your latest video about ” ZONE FOCUSING for dummies ” thet you can do in a SLR, well i have a Nikon FM and i don’t know IF i’m doin it right....Can you expleiining it? Or is it so much trouble to you? Maybe i’m so stupid. Alex
No worries brotha. It's literally the same EXACT process. You just have to TRUST that they are in focus if your subjects are in whatever "zone" you've selected on your lens. BUT, it just "feels off" (hence why it'll be blurry) because you're actually looking through the actual lens and not a seperate optical viewfinder like rangefinder cameras. So you're good man. As long as you followed the steps in the video and got the basic premise, you're doing nothing wrong on an SLR camera. Just keep shooting :)
jae rose I think i got you! I will watch the video on and on to get it properly finally....i’m been shooting on the wrong way but i can complain on my pictures! By the way, pretty wife you have, nice couple....is she italian? Best wishes!
Hahaha, I totally forgot about that button. Honestly, I've never used it, maybe once for portraits. But on the streets, that's the last thing i'm worried about when I have a split second to take my shitty photo :)
Great video my man, your the first photographer that debunks the whole process of slow, let me stick my lens in your face, please hold still street photography... It's pretty lame how so called street pro photographers state you have all the time in the world to slow down and shoot the leica way...im surprise how those type of photographers don't get their cameras smacked out of their hands, in my opinion street photography is all about the quick zone focus principal, you see the shot before you take it, you take the shot immediately before you miss the moment. I , love the leica image and and a M6 in the early 1980s, with digital and automation, the craft of photography changed completely. It was a new era for new formats and systems. In 2020, do I want to go back in time and revert to a manual camera photography again..been there, done it...ive shot with many dslr systems, just to keep up with the Jones, Nikon, Sony, and lately Fujifilm (live thenx100f) but there's something shooting with a zleica, no doubt about it... So I picked up a Vario-X, love the mini zoom, and the Q, both automatic and great cameras. After listening to a few guys about zone focusing, your analogy was prettynsimoke and straight forward, which promotes me to venture back to manual photography, so I was considering the M10, but not at the expense, so I'm looking towards the M240, what do you think?
THANNNNK YOU!!! Soooo much, you don't know how much of those thoughts were in my head for awhile, "this is bulls*&^ how do you expect me to take a decent street image when you want me to slow down!?!?" So i'm soo glad youve actually replied with those sentiments. I've seen NOBODY talk about this on youtube. So that's why I HAD to make this video to debunk the notion. And it sounds like you've had an awesome but painstaking journey in photography hahaha. So i'm honored that you would consider some advice. And IF/WHEN you start shooting manually, just wait until you start focusing by feel and use zone focusing as a back up. I'm gonna do a video on this down the road (it's one of my secrets, so I don't wanna let out all my tricks quite yet haha), it starts to really get fun, and you'll never shoot in auto again. As for cameras, I love love the idea of a digital Leica. If finances aren't an issue, go for it! Shit, at some point i want a Leica M10D (that's when you know i've made it). But the idea is there with Leica, Leica is doing it right with keeping things simple. The appeal was never there for me a year or so back, "Why??? I'll just shoot Fujifilm Xpro series like its a Leica." Nope! Once youve shot a Leica film camera, there's nobody else on the market digital wise that can satisfy that. But Leica. I was gonna pull a trigger on a Leica M8, literally a few weeks ago and shoot it like a film camera, but instead i bought a medium format film camera hahaha. So for ME, I wont invest in a Leica digital for awhile, maybe an M8, because you can get them fairly cheap (leica relativity). Because I can get that "fix" by actualy shooting the real thing haha. Again, sounds like you've had your journey and coming to terms with it and circling back. Me, I'm just getting started :)
Hey thanks for the watch and comment. I have a few other videos in the pipes, but it WILL be coming. So stay tuned, hit subscribe (shameless plug haha). No seriously though, It will be a 2 part series because it's rather complicated. The first video will be a "glue video" then the 2nd will be the essence of it.
@@jaeAre200 until your video tutorials, all my manual focus shots will be out of focus... 😥😓😭 On my way to find you on Instagram. Here is mine: instagram.com/seankimstyle/
Basically, zone focusing is for "ideal" weather conditions similar to "sunny 16" (that's why it's not a perfect way for shooting and why I DON'T zone focus anymore and I learned to "focus by feel." Much much more advance. Video on this coming soon.). But the idea with zone focusing, you try not to touch the aperture. Set it and forget it. THEN dial in your shutterspeed according. And when the lighting conditions change, you adjust your shutterspeed. Ie. If perfect exposure for a scene is, Film speed ISO 400 at F8 with Shutter speed 1/500. You keep it at that until the light changes. You fall into a place a little more darker, drop your SS to 1/250. Or if you fall into a shadow area, drop SS to 1/125...so on and so forth. Remember, zone focusing is a TOOL TO HELP, it's not an exact way to shoot. Just 1 of many tools in your toolbox. Hope this helps.
Speaking for all of the dummies out here, THANKS for this easy to understand video on zone focusing! :) Keep up the great work...
this is the kind of explanation I needed! I understand now why 80% of my shots are out of focus! lol. thanks you for this video!
in the old film days with a mechanical camera/lens we called this pre-focus. Doing weddings the rule was f5.6 everything 1/3 in front of the subject and everything 2/3 behind the subject would be in acceptable focus and it worked great. Now with the digital days I do trust the distance scale and it works great. For the record I think if you came from the film world that you do have a leg up on digital. Great video !!!!!!!
Dude, this is the first time I actually understood 100% of it. Bought a rangefinder film camera a few days ago and was pretty confused about the whole focus thing. Thanks!
I knew what zone focusing was and had an idea of how it works but what I was confused about was how I know the amount of range that's in focus at that particular aperture. I didn't know what the scale meant under the feet/meter scale and now it all makes sense. The only video that covered all of the aspects in full detail, I appreciate you!
No worries!! If you stay tuned, within the next couple of weeks, I will drop a video on "focus by feel," where you don't depend on zone focusing, you can do it through intuition, muscle memory, and feel :) Next level shit haha.
@@jaeAre200 Hell yeah bro, I just copped a leica Q - went from fuji to sony in seek of full frame cause leica seemed too overpriced for me, but I made the plunge on a great deal for the Q and so glad I did, I'm a huge fan of the analog/retro style of cameras. Haven't gone out to play yet with it but I wanted to learn as much as I could about manual focusing cause I want to prioritize that from now on for my street shooting. How do you incorporate your zone focusing at night? That could be another video. Btw, I saw you in one of lintaro's old videos a while back, nice to see you doing your own thing my man.
I do a quasi zone focus. When I bring my range finder to my eye, I'll do a "loose focus", even if the focus is not spot on. It's still within the "zone" or margin of error where zone focus takes over. If the person is far from me, I quickly throw my focus to near infinity and quickly bring it "closer" until I get it close to focus. If the person is near me, I do the opposite, I throw it to 3 feet (close focus) and quickly flick the focus further until I'm "near" focus.
Hasn't failed me yet, and dont need to worry about "am I in zone or not". Unless I'm doing some incognito, hip firing kind of street photography.
This is so far the best explanation of zone focusing! Thanks a lot bro!
I'm going to start shooting film on street soon. Thanks for helping me "shoot faster". My wife wont appreciate it.
hahaha, i'm glad this will help. And through my experience, the faster you shoot, the more you end up doing it and being alone :) Hashtag The Lone Shooter. Sorry, to the Mrs.
dude thank you for this video, I've watched so many and this one just helped make everything click
No problem brotha. I greatly appreciate your time and comment. Sometime down the road I'll make a "focus by feel" video.
This was an awesome tutorial to watch. You didn't come off full of yourself. You spoke to, and not at us newbies to zone focusing. You made me want to purchase a manual lens for my dslr.
Your actually not explaining zone focus, your showing hyperfocal distance because you using the infinity mark, zone focus is using the lens movable distance scale to line up the chosen f stop with the fixed f stop scale then reading from left to right between the two f8 marks and that gives you your zone of focus, infinity focus and zone focus are two different approaches
Martin Henson Yes, Exactly Martin. He is talking about the hyperfocal distance mostly use in Landscape Photography.
@@aungwinhtut6028so what is the difference between what he is showing and zone focus?
The difference is almost semantics. And why I PERSONALLY feel there are good teachers and not so good teachers because one stresses overall comprehension of an idea vs little details to stress that don't play much signficance in the overall-understanding. The difference is simply using the infinity marker as your end point ("HyPeRFOcal DisTAncE") (as I start beginners off with in the beginning of the video) and then ultimately moving your "end point" or "zone" to the F Stop given ie F16 or F8 on the lens to whatever distance suits your needs (where I eventually move the discussion in the video when there is less light to give proper exposure. So maybe they didn't watch the entire video???) thats it!! haha. It's actually laughable how negligeable it is, when you know the difference. And if you physically show someone the difference on the lens between the 2, you would look like an idiot for even stressing the difference.
That's not at all true. Just because he's using infinity as the upper constraint of the focal zone, doesn't mean he's describing hyperfocal distance.
To give you an example, on my canon FD 50mm f/1.8 lens, if I set my focus as he is showing here, with my aperture set at f/16, I have a focal zone ranging from ~2.5m to infinity. But the hyperfocal distance (calculated from the formula H=f^2/Nc+f, where f=50mm, N=f/16, c=0.029mm, giving H=50^2/(16x0.029)+50) is actually ~5.5m, meaning anything beyond this distance will be "acceptably" in focus. This doesn't mean that the range from 2.5m - 5.5m won't be in focus, but will be slightly less in focus than anything beyond the hyperfocal distance calculated. So he actually is describing zone focusing since he is discussing the ranges of focus for specific aperture stops, and not specifically the distance beyond which everything will be acceptably in focus. Hyperfocal distance is often confused to mean any focus extending out to infinity, but that is not accurate. Optics is the *focus* of my profession - see what I did there?
Yup the best video! Thank you! Watched 5 videos and still did not understand it. This was very clear and made it a lot easier. Thank you!
Your zone focusing is just outstanding, now I have to try it and will let you know how did it go...
i work as a cameraman and i still found some information here helpful that I didn't really get before! thanks for this
This has been really well explained. I liked the fact you wrote it down and made it more visual and easy to understand.
Appreciate it! I'm glad this helped. Some time down the road I'll do a similar video on "focus by feel." Stay tuned.
Thanks for this... I'm a total dummy and a newbie to photography and this video helped me understand what the focus scale on a lens actually tells you XD .. makes me a lot more confident that I can creatively compose a shot now without spending ages looking through the viewfinder and checking my DOF preview. Great little lesson.
Thanks for this! It totally clicked in my mind. I just started learning film photography with my vintage camera.
Great video and really clear... and yes would like to see the next one where you focus by feel.
Me too!
Thank you! The new video of FOCUS BY FEEL is uploaded. Hope you like it...go get it.
Dude i did not understand the condom thing haha but this is the best tutorial about zone focussing i’ve ever seen! Thanks man! Great explanation!
Thanks for this video Jae, from one "dummy" to another. I used to shoot film back in the 70's and 80's but like most of us older farts, got away from it for a long time. I just ordered a Yashica Electro 35 GSN and never had a rangefinder before and sure never knew how to read all those hieroglyphics on the lens barrels. This was enormously helpful, thank you... stay safe during the CV pandemic!!!
This is how folk should learn focusing.. Top stuff jae
Except that this is not zone focusing. It’s hyperfocal distance. Τhey are two different methods of focusing.
Thank you for making this video! The visuals and the simple explanations gave me a little bit of confidence. Now to actually use the concepts ... stay tuned.
Love your humor and style! Best zone focusing video
btw, just got a Leica M10p and the stupid expensive .95 50mm lens.. this has been helpful. I hope I don't regret getting rid of the DSLR!
Mannnnnn...you're living your best life right now. That sounds sooo awesome. What a dream kit for most. I would love to get my hands on an M10D, basically a digital analog camera haha.
@@jaeAre200 I took some mind blowing pics today .. first day with it.. only thing is there is definitely not a lot of situations when it's mid day and bright outside when you can take full advantage of the .95 F stop... it's a shade/dark area aperture .. mostly it's useful at F8-11 range during the day.
I think zone focusing is still very applicable to digital slrs, as is hyper focus. I also love using a Ricoh GRiii because it's setup to show you your zones.
my question is this. I seta. zone on my m6- but then when i look through the viewfinder something clearly in that zone looks out of focus in range finder. should it theoretically look focused in viewfinder when using zone focusing?
I admit I end up getting confused when they try explaining Zone focusing, with the settings and blurb
Wow I now truly understand and appreciate zone focusing.. thanks for the great content 👍
I learned "Focus by Feel" after I took the photography class, and it's a crucial technique for street photography, without it I would have missed so many good memories captured. (M3 + 50mm lens)
Thank you for making this so simple. Getting back into film after more than 25 years and need this refresher.
Niiiiice!! Welcome back!!
Just started with my film photography journey and this video was extremely helpful! I would love it if you made a video on "how to focus by feel". Thanks so much!
Hey, thanks! In the description, I have videos 2 and 3 of my focus series. I suggest watching them in order. But the last is "focus by feel"
I don't understand one thing: once the zone focus is set, if I look through the viewfinder even distant objects are not in focus... Why?
This is a great explanation. Thank you.
This video was amazing. Great job with examples and explanation. You are helping make it possible for me to shoot my Leica M3 now without needing the camera fixed lol.
Thanks for this, this is the best explanation that i needed. I subscribed
Nice to see you use an Olympus OM. Still the best SLRs made, in my opinion.
I've had to resort to using zone focussing on occasions. I shoot live music in small, mostly badly lit venues around London. Usually I shoot digital, but also take my OM1 or OM2 to shoot B&W as well. A little while back I bought a Samyang manual focus lens, but DSLRs are terrible for focussing manually as they don't have fresnel or split screens like you get on the OM, so I've had to zone focus with it, shooting wide open, because of the low light. Thankfully it's a 14mm f/2.8, so really wide, which does make it easier, and I'm usually really close to the band. Unfortunately, the lens doesn't have a DoF scale on it so it's mostly guess work, but most of the shots are sharp enough. Anyway, it's only rock'n'roll.
Mannnn, I certainly do not envy you trying to zone focus in dim places. Thats rough. BUT, the good thing is you have these tools to lean back on. You sound like you know what youre doing, so I feel bad for those who just do digital and have to HEAVILY rely on their machinery instead of sometimes doing it the old school way. Oh, and the OM1 is just a sexy looking camera all together. I believe it is up there with the Leicas with best looking cameras.
@@jaeAre200 I'm old school because I am old (or at least was born quite a while back). I love the OM cameras and have been using them since the 70s - not the same one as that original one died from abuse, although I still have the corpse. These days I have 3 x OM1, 2 x OM2 and an OM40, plus lenses from 24mm f/2.8 up to 180mm f/2.8, plus a bunch of winders and a couple of flashes. I do need to stay away from eBay, but I can't resist a bargain. I have them in the knowledge that they will outlast any digital camera, just as film will out survive any digital files.
So glad to find this video. I recently acquired a a Kodak Signet 80, (1958 Rangefinder)
I had been doing the whole focus via bringing the double image together FOR EVERY SINGLE shot... what a bunch of shit that was.
Anyway, I’ll give this a try.👍
Hahaha, for streetphotography, I have a rule, if the camera is to your eye and you have to focus and compose it, your too slow. In a month or so, I will have my final "focus series" video out where you can focus by feel. So when the light goes down and that "zone" is narrow as fuck, you can still nail that focus at F4 and below :)
Great video. Thank you for sharing. I’m new to photography and I’ve just bought a Nikon z50 with a kit lens, DX 16-50mm. Can I do zone focusing with this kit lens? It does not have a ring to turn to infinitive. Should I buy a 35mm prime lense then? Please kindly advise. Thanks.
Didn't expect to stumble upon video this productive. This will help a lot, thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Great video! Might have been good to mention lens diffraction at f/16 so people are aware of the tradeoffs between improved zone distance and sharpness.
Great video! I unfortunately learned this the hard way with lots under focused behind the scenes shots with my telephoto. I’ve gotten better through trial and error, burb his definitely helps visualize and make more sense of the extreme narrowness of depth of field with longer lenses and shorter one as well. I definitely have to play around with this. I was actually looking for zone system videos to visualize my exposure and this popped up and is something I’ve wanted to learn more about but didn’t know the term.
Best video about zone photography 🙏
Pretty amazing video, I'm getting there slowly, thanks to you
Thanks for this easy to understand video on zone focusing! Mycket bra!
You're fun to listen to. Informative stuff, thanks!
Great vid Jae. Thanks a million. Very clear and concise
Very fantastic video bro! What is the road we should go down with our m6 in order to intuitively grasp the concept of focusing by feel like you have in time? I really enjoyed the video
Thank you! I just posted the last installment of my focus series. The FOCUS BY FEEL video is uploaded. Have fun and good luck.
Good explanation but in f16, you didnt mention the shutter speed. Im shooting slr and f16 need a tripod. Just bought a 35 mm range finder and have not try in real world yet.
That zone focusing analogy got me to subscribe
same
I'm watching this holding my 50mm and thank you so much, I'm starting now with street photography and your videos are helping me a lot! :)
Thank you!!! I try to make videos that I wish myself had when I was first starting out, so I'm glad this is helping :) Enjoy the journey!!
I shoot a old slr. And shot my first filmstock and it came back blurry... when i saw it was crisp in the viewfinder. So maybe that because of that case about slr cameras that you Said?
And when it was crisp in viewfinder i felt the scale on the lens was of in distance compared to the real life. So could i be fooled by that stuff you explained about zone focusing on slr?
Next filmstock i will try the zone focusing and trust the distance scale. And not always look for that crisp in the viewfinder.
Best regards
Alfons
Great explanation, explained it in a very simple way, thanks very much
That analogy in the beginning got me cackling 🤣🤣😭
Also this is a _phenomenal_ explanation. You deserve more attention!
hey there! this is the first time i learned about zone focusing, and i understood the basics of it from your video! but as with other videos or articles i've looked into, you all referred to a manual slr, so you have exact control over the focus range in that case. on the other hand, i got a konica c35 ef for my first film camera and it uses zone focusing (fixed? 4 different settings), but i have no control over aperture (i can lock exposure though) and shutter speed.
do you have any insights how i can utilize zone focusing with this kind of camera? i'm still learning and practicing, but would greatly appreciate if you could give me some direction. thank you so much, i love your videos!
I just Repaired a Konica C35 V, the focus ring has 1meter,2m, 3m and infinity, the ring below this you set f-stop or auto . It’s a lovely little camera , I see C35 range finder doesn’t have this marked on the focus ring, measure 1m to an object put a black dot on the ring and the outer lens edge measure 2m to an object and put another mark on focus ring then do same for 3m and infinity will be full focus
Hi man,
Best explanation yet. Wish I knew all this 30 years ago. D
Wonderful video, thanks!
Merci. I started to think that I was really stupid because I saw a lot video without understand. So, you saved me, even if it was english I understood a lot more than all the videos I saw before. :)
Well, you're not the only one, that's why I made this video because I felt stupid too. And I knew there was a better way to explain this haha. Glad the visuals help if my actual language didnt so much haha.
All about understanding and taking advantage of the depth of field of your lenses. Great explaination.
Yesss, indeed. Thanks for the watch and comment. Much appreciated.
This vid really helped me get to grips with understanding zone focusing better. I have two questions: 1) what shutter speeds do you personally use when zone focusing?
2) I have a Minolta Hi-matic 7s ii with a fixed 40mm lens. Do you have any settings recommendations? I'm so new to photography but most vids are for 35mm lens. ✌🏻
Thank you!! I try not to shoot anything under 1/125 ss. As for the 40mm pancake style lenses, hmm...it's close to a 50mm so that "zone" becomes a little tight, so i would recommend trying to shoot at F16 IF YOU CAN on a sunny day, so you may have to lower your shutterspeed to 1/60th, which is still fine. OR start pushing your film +2 stops so your rating your 400 speed film at 1600 and that should let you shoot at F16 or so. Good luck! Have fun! Also, messing up a few rolls is just part of the process, so don't be discouraged. I shot 20 bad rolls until I figured out what the hell I was doing.
@@jaeAre200 Thanks so much for the advice & encouragement 🙂
Yea this was perfect, like a few others said everything just clicked.. thanks for this video, keep up the good work 👍
Glad it helped. Thanks for the comment and the watch.
Quick question: when you showed the F8 distances, you shifted from infinity to 15 ft. how do you do that with the camera, when you're shooting? how do you get to pick whether your far distance is infinity or 15ft? sorry if that's a dumb question, it's the only part of the video I didn't understand!
I have a mirrorless camera. Namely, the Lumix S5. Do you recommend zone focusing for this type of camera? Or do you know of an autofocus mode that beats zone focusing on digital cameras?
Hey man, wicked video and a great explanation. Was just curious how you find exposure at f8 wandering round London, sounds like your pushing a stop or 2 most of the time on the stock itself but do you find you have issues with your shutter speed that you have to go a bit too slow to capture people wandering about without motion blur? Do you have a speed say 1/100-1/250th that you don't go slower than so you don't get heaps of motion blur? I have an M6 too and its great for shower shutter speeds and one of the advantages of a RF but just curious where you think the limit with what you can get away with is. Great channel though man your videos and thoughts about the analog life are real interesting/inspiring.
Thanks for the video Jae..great explanation, but what about shutter speed? You still have to adjust speed on shots?
Hey no worries!! Yeah, unfortunately you still have to control shutter speed. So when I'm shooting my Leica M6, I'm only physically turning my shutter speed to match each lighting condition i walk into i.e.. shadow area, bright area etc. UNLESS you have a camera that is aperture priority, then my friend, you pretty much can point and shoot.
I like the shutter censor at 4:52.
Lmao you said trust it and I'm literally like... man this ain't gonna work. Ima do it though!
Thanks for sharing that. It is really useful.
Where do you move the focus ring too to dictate the distance? Do you leave the focus ring in one place or do you move it? Thanks
The idea is you're not moving the focus ring at all after you lined up the infinity symbol to the according aperture number on the lens. So typically, you move the focus ring slightly to the right (where the infinity symbol is) and you leave it there. According to if you're shooting at F8 or F16 etc etc. The diagram i showed you is ALL displayed on your manual focus lens. If you look at and study your lens and then watch my video, it should all make sense :) I'm sure it will click :)
@@jaeAre200
Great video Jae! I missed most of my zone focusing shots before you explained it to me.
Haha, all good man! Glad I was able to help.
What a brilliant way is to explain the concept!
Haha, thanks so much! It took a little while for me to think, "How can I make this to where a simple person like me could understand this??" Boom!! Appreciate the watch and you taking the time out to comment.
Really useful video Jae, well done! Finally a comprehensive, step by step guide to zone focusing. Keep up the great work ; )
Thank you so much, I felt this video needed to be done and in a certain way that you should need to see this video ONCE and thats it. I hated youtubing 9 videos to figure this out. So I just figured it out myself haha.
jae rose I know exactly what you mean. Btw no idea why you don’t have a lot more followers. You got a great channel. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time anyway. Look forward to your next video 👊
@@TheLoneRangefinder Very very kind words. Thank you. Ehhh, in due time the followers will come I suppose. I'm not too worried about it. I have my own professional photography career I'm trying to worry about and this channel is my way of GIVING BACK to the photography and street photography genre that has helped me sooo much.
jae rose Thanks for the sub 😂 You’ve radically increased my following 🤣🤣🤣
@@TheLoneRangefinder Boom!! haha. Like attracts Like. Sub attracts Sub haha.
Every single video I watched today about this topic all had a hipster beanie on 😂 I was very surprised 😂
F8 in London while me constantly having 5.6 overcasts in Scotland.
Nice explanation 👌. I like the idea of mastering the camera eventually!
This is great provided you lens is correctly calibrated!!
If I took any 5 negative frames they would end up being the same length no? Am I misunderstanding
Great tutorial, thanks man!
Thanks for the video man, I'm shooting a Pen F with a 24mm lens making it a 35/36mm equivalent and I'm trying to figure out how I'm supposed to zone focus with this thing. Anyone know if DOF is affected due to the crop? Not sure if I should be looking at the distances on the lens or if I'd have to be going based off what a 35mm lens would. Anyone know?
You never “ Bleeped” out Fuck it Jae 🤣🤣🤣🤣 brilliant
Wow that was really helpful! Very easyto understand
Hello jae! You said in your latest video about ” ZONE FOCUSING for dummies ” thet you can do in a SLR, well i have a Nikon FM and i don’t know IF i’m doin it right....Can you expleiining it? Or is it so much trouble to you? Maybe i’m so stupid. Alex
No worries brotha. It's literally the same EXACT process. You just have to TRUST that they are in focus if your subjects are in whatever "zone" you've selected on your lens. BUT, it just "feels off" (hence why it'll be blurry) because you're actually looking through the actual lens and not a seperate optical viewfinder like rangefinder cameras. So you're good man. As long as you followed the steps in the video and got the basic premise, you're doing nothing wrong on an SLR camera. Just keep shooting :)
jae rose I think i got you! I will watch the video on and on to get it properly finally....i’m been shooting on the wrong way but i can complain on my pictures! By the way, pretty wife you have, nice couple....is she italian? Best wishes!
I finallh undertand it. Thank you
Great video - thank you so much!
Brilliant! Thank you! 🤩
No worries. And thank you for your time and comment :)
This was awesome 👍🏼
Loved your analogy
Come for the tips. Stay for the condom analogy. Hahaha! Keep it up Jae!!!
Appreciate it brotha!! Since 18 yrs old, I've come a loong way...wait what.
depth of field preview button for slr's is the missing piece! great vid bro! do the focus by feel vid!
Hahaha, I totally forgot about that button. Honestly, I've never used it, maybe once for portraits. But on the streets, that's the last thing i'm worried about when I have a split second to take my shitty photo :)
Great video my man, your the first photographer that debunks the whole process of slow, let me stick my lens in your face, please hold still street photography... It's pretty lame how so called street pro photographers state you have all the time in the world to slow down and shoot the leica way...im surprise how those type of photographers don't get their cameras smacked out of their hands, in my opinion street photography is all about the quick zone focus principal, you see the shot before you take it, you take the shot immediately before you miss the moment. I , love the leica image and and a M6 in the early 1980s, with digital and automation, the craft of photography changed completely. It was a new era for new formats and systems. In 2020, do I want to go back in time and revert to a manual camera photography again..been there, done it...ive shot with many dslr systems, just to keep up with the Jones, Nikon, Sony, and lately Fujifilm (live thenx100f) but there's something shooting with a zleica, no doubt about it... So I picked up a Vario-X, love the mini zoom, and the Q, both automatic and great cameras. After listening to a few guys about zone focusing, your analogy was prettynsimoke and straight forward, which promotes me to venture back to manual photography, so I was considering the M10, but not at the expense, so I'm looking towards the M240, what do you think?
THANNNNK YOU!!! Soooo much, you don't know how much of those thoughts were in my head for awhile, "this is bulls*&^ how do you expect me to take a decent street image when you want me to slow down!?!?" So i'm soo glad youve actually replied with those sentiments. I've seen NOBODY talk about this on youtube. So that's why I HAD to make this video to debunk the notion. And it sounds like you've had an awesome but painstaking journey in photography hahaha. So i'm honored that you would consider some advice. And IF/WHEN you start shooting manually, just wait until you start focusing by feel and use zone focusing as a back up. I'm gonna do a video on this down the road (it's one of my secrets, so I don't wanna let out all my tricks quite yet haha), it starts to really get fun, and you'll never shoot in auto again. As for cameras, I love love the idea of a digital Leica. If finances aren't an issue, go for it! Shit, at some point i want a Leica M10D (that's when you know i've made it). But the idea is there with Leica, Leica is doing it right with keeping things simple. The appeal was never there for me a year or so back, "Why??? I'll just shoot Fujifilm Xpro series like its a Leica." Nope! Once youve shot a Leica film camera, there's nobody else on the market digital wise that can satisfy that. But Leica. I was gonna pull a trigger on a Leica M8, literally a few weeks ago and shoot it like a film camera, but instead i bought a medium format film camera hahaha. So for ME, I wont invest in a Leica digital for awhile, maybe an M8, because you can get them fairly cheap (leica relativity). Because I can get that "fix" by actualy shooting the real thing haha. Again, sounds like you've had your journey and coming to terms with it and circling back. Me, I'm just getting started :)
Thank you for this video! Have you made another tutorial on how to manually focus?😁
Hey thanks for the watch and comment. I have a few other videos in the pipes, but it WILL be coming. So stay tuned, hit subscribe (shameless plug haha). No seriously though, It will be a 2 part series because it's rather complicated. The first video will be a "glue video" then the 2nd will be the essence of it.
@@jaeAre200 until your video tutorials, all my manual focus shots will be out of focus... 😥😓😭
On my way to find you on Instagram.
Here is mine:
instagram.com/seankimstyle/
at first i was like wtf but nowwwwww i get it. thanks
I think we were all like this haha...glad it helped.
Man! Should have seen this earlier. I think I missed one really nice shot. Hope it’s okay when I get the film back.
Hahaha, I feel you. I'm sure things will turn out just fine. Thanks for the watch and comment.
This was sooo helpful, thank you so much!
Hey Jae! I didn’t “zone” out😁 awesome video, great-information, Thanks. 😎👍✌️
Well, I'm glad this was able to reach you in your specific time zone (see what I did there?)
jae rose Yrah, you’re “focused” on your audience-that’s awesome 😎📷✌️
what a great video. Thanks homie
Oooo I get it. It's just snapfocus from GRIII that's all folks.
Hahaha...Orrrrr GR snapfocus is just zone focusing :)
I've watched a few vids on this topic, but everyone seems to gloss over how to determine shutter speed? Am I missing something?
Basically, zone focusing is for "ideal" weather conditions similar to "sunny 16" (that's why it's not a perfect way for shooting and why I DON'T zone focus anymore and I learned to "focus by feel." Much much more advance. Video on this coming soon.). But the idea with zone focusing, you try not to touch the aperture. Set it and forget it. THEN dial in your shutterspeed according. And when the lighting conditions change, you adjust your shutterspeed. Ie. If perfect exposure for a scene is, Film speed ISO 400 at F8 with Shutter speed 1/500. You keep it at that until the light changes. You fall into a place a little more darker, drop your SS to 1/250. Or if you fall into a shadow area, drop SS to 1/125...so on and so forth. Remember, zone focusing is a TOOL TO HELP, it's not an exact way to shoot. Just 1 of many tools in your toolbox. Hope this helps.
@@jaeAre200 thanks 👍
amazing video brotherr
Great,did`t know I dumb I`m😂😂👏🏽