Hey hello you should definitely sign up to my emails! I will send you cool stuff for inspo, share cool photography, and you actually can email me back and ask questions! I am an open book. → email.huntercreatesthings.com/ 📸
Zone focus is essentially what the cheap single use film camera's sometimes left on tables at wedding receptions do. Small aperture gives a large zone. Those cameras don't have focus.
lot of cameras also have a “focus distance” scale, that can show up on the LCD/EVF, showing you where your focus is, and what’s in focus, using the focus and aperture info from the lens, that’s a good way to use modern glass close to retro style!
fantastic piece of advice, this. and yes, guesstimating distances absolutely gets easier with practice, though the trick there was convincing my american brain it actually is a lot easier to start thinking in meters instead of feet lol
@@huntercreatesthings oh yeah, 100% context dependent, but i meant in terms of pre-focusing my 50/1.4 or 85/1.8 via the window and then getting gud™ at being able to consistently place myself in position, switching my brain to think of 10ft as 3m instead helps me like... idk sorta visualize it in my head? like i can put a mental overlay of two subdivisions between me and the subject a lot better than nine of them lol fewer bigger chunks are easier for my brain to grasp i suppose, but again thats just in the context of street photography, other applications definitely benefit from other yardsticks
Hunter, man, your content is great, eloquent and always on point. It deserves a lot more views. I just bought my first digital camera, and I'm happy to have you as a mentor. I bought micro four thirds and at first crop size gave me a confusion, in a sense of matching full frame sizes and f stops to m4/3. I think tinkering on the site you gave cemented understanding of many different things in me. Many thanks!
Is that where the expression "F8 and be there" come from. As long as it's bright enough, just F8 and everything will be in focus. Just have to make sure the scene is interesting.
That wooden spoon certainly brought back some memories for a few of us! LOL! I don't know if this is a dumb question or not.... Must one make an adjustment to the distances when adapting a "vintage" full-frame lens to an APSC sensor body? I usually just stop down to a point where it probably wouldn't matter. But, the thought just came up.
Hahaha 😅 the spoon mic is quickly becoming a part of my identity That's a great question! Luckily, the zone is determined by the focal length, which doesn't change no matter what camera the lens is mounted to. The even better news is that if you're using an APSC sensor, you can use even shorter focal lengths which give you a much larger zone to work with, in the same field of view - so a 35mm on full frame has a smaller zone than a 24mm on APSC even though they feel the same amount of "Wide" Does that make sense?
@@huntercreatesthings Yes it makes sense. I figured taht was the answer because the focusing takes place within the barrel of the lens, not in the camera. But, just in case, thought I'd ask. Thanks!!
Another trick I use on my lenses including that awesome Pentax 28mm is: I chose my aperture as usual, chose my focus zone and then I back it a little bit from infinity cause who cares about infinity in the streets. So instead of having acceptable sharpness between i.e 3m-∞ it becomes i.e 1.5 to 50 or 100m or "close to ∞, which is more than enough.
@@huntercreatesthings exactly cause most of times your subjects are going to be in the less than 20 30 range, otherwise it would be called bird photography 😂
I shoot a lot with older cameras (Kodak Stereo Camera, for instance) and sometimes this is the only way to focus. My secret is that I’ve done a fair amount of construction so I visualize sheets of plywood or 2x4s between me and my subject to estimate the distance.
@@huntercreatesthings Similar to shooting a regular 35 but with a few tweaks. Shutter speed is limited to 1/200 by the need for synchronized mechanical shutters. There are sliders instead of rings or dials for ss and aperture, to make sure they stay consistent between the two lenses, and focusing one lens changes the other as well. Zone focus marks on one lens, but less technical marks like “close ups,” “groups,” or “scenes” on the other. Probably the biggest difference is remembering you have square exposures instead of 4:3 for composition purposes, and also that the more layers of depth in your shot, the stronger the stereo effect. So you think more about foreground and background when choosing subjects. Mergers are less of a problem because the stereo effect creates so much separation, even when you have a deep field. I made a beginner’s walkthrough back when I was getting started with it. ua-cam.com/video/xYOHaAeQRSk/v-deo.html
@@huntercreatesthings It’s FUN. Hmm... Main differences would be camera controls (more sliders and levers than dials and lens rings), and then various limitations/accommodations/opportunities that come with shooting in stereo. For example composition is different because you have a square aspect ratio (at least with the camera I use), and depth is probably the single most important factor in choosing a subject. Why shoot in stereo if the interest is all at the same distance? So you think a lot about foreground and background, and often use a deep field. You look for subjects that recede into the distance or scenes with points of interest at different distances from the camera. It still works with a shallow DoF, and that can be stunning, but the camera has a larger minimum focus distance, and a fixed focal length, so a shallow field is harder to achieve with many subjects. But once you understand that the stereo effect makes up for this, you see it as a feature instead of a bug. Mergers are much less of a problem because you can perceive the depth, so shots that look messy in a flat photo can have clear separation in a stereograph. Techniques you would use to guide the eye through a 2D image either don’t work as well or gain new power or complexity in a 3D one. Experimenting with that is really fun. Some people use dual camera rigs to overcome some of the limitations, which is cool, but I’ve never tried that. Never had two identical cameras and the time to dial them in. Once you go through the process of getting your stereo pairs developed, sorted, printed, and mounted, seeing them though a stereopticon/viewer is incredible. Focus looks sharper, differences in color or exposure are largely averaged, which can be interesting, and the sense of depth you can achieve is truly remarkable. It’s very accessible if you know how to shoot manually, but in some ways it's unlike any other type of photography.
But i want to shoot WIDE OPEN at f1.4 for street photography 😂 But forreal, f4 and 5.6 are incredible. Shallow depth of field isn’t everything. Composition is underrated
Must be something wrong with me because no matter how many times and in how many different ways someone has tried to explain zone focusing, it still hasn't clicked...Hopefully someday...
I hear you! What I find helps is practicing in the woods on some trees. I highly reccomend this. Just consider all shots as throwaways for the sake of learning. If you don’t have access to Woods, then just use buildings or random things around your house or apartment. It helps when it comes to muscle memory with the focus ring on your lens. Hope this helps🤘📸
The thing that helped me get sharper and sharper images was not being afraid of higher shutter speeds and deep depth of fields. I always thought, "I bought this f2.8 lens... so I'm keeping this thing at f2.8." I also thought higher shutter speeds would kill motion blur and look fake, but honestly it hasn't been true in my experience. I'm ALWAYS looking for more ways to achieve sharp focus, so I'm really looking forward to trying this method out.
Not so good - generally in low light you need to shoot wide open or close to it, so unless you're an absolute chad at estimating distance your zone probably too small at F2 and wider
No, you can’t. Zone focus is a useful technique for using with a manual focus lens. Using zone focus with the required depth of field results in a combination of lower shutter speeds and higher iso’s compared to what you could get with a wider aperture and AF. Nothing beats a modern mirrorless AF system like Canon or Sony.
Hey hello you should definitely sign up to my emails! I will send you cool stuff for inspo, share cool photography, and you actually can email me back and ask questions! I am an open book. → email.huntercreatesthings.com/ 📸
I did
This is actually a good exercise to make photography fun. Photography used to be fun, now it’s all about gear specs and likes on social media.
100% - I often say that Photography (verb) is more fun than Photography (noun)!
Literally gave you a sub and like for the microphone setup. 👍🏾
hero
Same here 😂😂😂😂
3:00 this is the BEST description of depth of field i uave ever heard.
Thank you hahaha
You just made me a better photographer, i love you
❤️
It's fun to learn something new about the old gear I have been using all the time. My Nikon lenses have these zones nicely coded with color. 📸
Nikon always looking out for us
Zone focus is essentially what the cheap single use film camera's sometimes left on tables at wedding receptions do. Small aperture gives a large zone. Those cameras don't have focus.
Exactly!!
lot of cameras also have a “focus distance” scale, that can show up on the LCD/EVF, showing you where your focus is, and what’s in focus, using the focus and aperture info from the lens, that’s a good way to use modern glass close to retro style!
That's actually a great point!
I have a Sony Batis lens
Is this what you’re describing?
That Zone Calculator helped me a lot. Thanks.
Glad it helped!
fantastic piece of advice, this. and yes, guesstimating distances absolutely gets easier with practice, though the trick there was convincing my american brain it actually is a lot easier to start thinking in meters instead of feet lol
To be honest I literally switch between meters and feet depending on the day - I prefer inches over cm, and km over miles...
@@huntercreatesthings oh yeah, 100% context dependent, but i meant in terms of pre-focusing my 50/1.4 or 85/1.8 via the window and then getting gud™ at being able to consistently place myself in position, switching my brain to think of 10ft as 3m instead helps me like... idk sorta visualize it in my head? like i can put a mental overlay of two subdivisions between me and the subject a lot better than nine of them lol fewer bigger chunks are easier for my brain to grasp i suppose, but again thats just in the context of street photography, other applications definitely benefit from other yardsticks
I hope you realize yards have existed this whole time.
Hunter, man, your content is great, eloquent and always on point. It deserves a lot more views.
I just bought my first digital camera, and I'm happy to have you as a mentor. I bought micro four thirds and at first crop size gave me a confusion, in a sense of matching full frame sizes and f stops to m4/3. I think tinkering on the site you gave cemented understanding of many different things in me. Many thanks!
Thank you so much!! I'm so glad I could help, that means a lot ❤️ can't wait to see what you make with it!
Love your spoon-mic! Great input. Helpful for me. Thank you! 💙
Glad it was helpful!
that last tip is gold for af lenses
Handy innit!
Iv had my mind blown 3 times, thank you so much for making aperture click for me
I'm so glad it helped!!
This vid has made the most sense to me so far and I use my k1000 everyday
Sick! I'm glad I could help.
Very useful information! Thanks
You're very welcome!
Thanks mate. Will try it soon and get back here :)
Good luck!
Is that where the expression "F8 and be there" come from. As long as it's bright enough, just F8 and everything will be in focus. Just have to make sure the scene is interesting.
Yep!! One of the first bits of advice I give people :)
That wooden spoon certainly brought back some memories for a few of us! LOL! I don't know if this is a dumb question or not.... Must one make an adjustment to the distances when adapting a "vintage" full-frame lens to an APSC sensor body? I usually just stop down to a point where it probably wouldn't matter. But, the thought just came up.
Hahaha 😅 the spoon mic is quickly becoming a part of my identity
That's a great question! Luckily, the zone is determined by the focal length, which doesn't change no matter what camera the lens is mounted to. The even better news is that if you're using an APSC sensor, you can use even shorter focal lengths which give you a much larger zone to work with, in the same field of view - so a 35mm on full frame has a smaller zone than a 24mm on APSC even though they feel the same amount of "Wide"
Does that make sense?
@@huntercreatesthings Yes it makes sense. I figured taht was the answer because the focusing takes place within the barrel of the lens, not in the camera. But, just in case, thought I'd ask. Thanks!!
Another trick I use on my lenses including that awesome Pentax 28mm is: I chose my aperture as usual, chose my focus zone and then I back it a little bit from infinity cause who cares about infinity in the streets. So instead of having acceptable sharpness between i.e 3m-∞ it becomes i.e 1.5 to 50 or 100m or "close to ∞, which is more than enough.
OMG I do this too!! Would rather have a bit of "bonus zone" in the foreground sometimes
@@huntercreatesthings exactly cause most of times your subjects are going to be in the less than 20 30 range, otherwise it would be called bird photography 😂
Great video bro! Really useful! I´ve done that before, but unconscient.
Thanks mate! It's honestly such a game changer once it clicks in your brain
@@huntercreatesthings Yeah! I´m going to practice that today! he he.
I shoot a lot with older cameras (Kodak Stereo Camera, for instance) and sometimes this is the only way to focus. My secret is that I’ve done a fair amount of construction so I visualize sheets of plywood or 2x4s between me and my subject to estimate the distance.
Wow, I've never played with a Stereo Cam, what's it like?
@@huntercreatesthings Similar to shooting a regular 35 but with a few tweaks. Shutter speed is limited to 1/200 by the need for synchronized mechanical shutters. There are sliders instead of rings or dials for ss and aperture, to make sure they stay consistent between the two lenses, and focusing one lens changes the other as well. Zone focus marks on one lens, but less technical marks like “close ups,” “groups,” or “scenes” on the other. Probably the biggest difference is remembering you have square exposures instead of 4:3 for composition purposes, and also that the more layers of depth in your shot, the stronger the stereo effect. So you think more about foreground and background when choosing subjects. Mergers are less of a problem because the stereo effect creates so much separation, even when you have a deep field. I made a beginner’s walkthrough back when I was getting started with it. ua-cam.com/video/xYOHaAeQRSk/v-deo.html
@@huntercreatesthings It’s FUN. Hmm... Main differences would be camera controls (more sliders and levers than dials and lens rings), and then various limitations/accommodations/opportunities that come with shooting in stereo.
For example composition is different because you have a square aspect ratio (at least with the camera I use), and depth is probably the single most important factor in choosing a subject. Why shoot in stereo if the interest is all at the same distance? So you think a lot about foreground and background, and often use a deep field. You look for subjects that recede into the distance or scenes with points of interest at different distances from the camera.
It still works with a shallow DoF, and that can be stunning, but the camera has a larger minimum focus distance, and a fixed focal length, so a shallow field is harder to achieve with many subjects. But once you understand that the stereo effect makes up for this, you see it as a feature instead of a bug. Mergers are much less of a problem because you can perceive the depth, so shots that look messy in a flat photo can have clear separation in a stereograph. Techniques you would use to guide the eye through a 2D image either don’t work as well or gain new power or complexity in a 3D one. Experimenting with that is really fun.
Some people use dual camera rigs to overcome some of the limitations, which is cool, but I’ve never tried that. Never had two identical cameras and the time to dial them in.
Once you go through the process of getting your stereo pairs developed, sorted, printed, and mounted, seeing them though a stereopticon/viewer is incredible. Focus looks sharper, differences in color or exposure are largely averaged, which can be interesting, and the sense of depth you can achieve is truly remarkable. It’s very accessible if you know how to shoot manually, but in some ways it's unlike any other type of photography.
Really like the chocking spoon mic. Definitely gives a professional feel 😂🤣😭👍
I like to keep myself grounded
@@huntercreatesthings sure, don't get me wrong. I absolutely love that kind of humour - very British! :D
But i want to shoot WIDE OPEN at f1.4 for street photography 😂
But forreal, f4 and 5.6 are incredible. Shallow depth of field isn’t everything. Composition is underrated
Honestly, I almost never shoot wide open
Must be something wrong with me because no matter how many times and in how many different ways someone has tried to explain zone focusing, it still hasn't clicked...Hopefully someday...
It's a weird concept - maybe try it with a friend as your subject so you can play around with it?
I hear you! What I find helps is practicing in the woods on some trees. I highly reccomend this. Just consider all shots as throwaways for the sake of learning. If you don’t have access to Woods, then just use buildings or random things around your house or apartment. It helps when it comes to muscle memory with the focus ring on your lens. Hope this helps🤘📸
what lens is that? and what is that white button thing for? lol such a useful vide btw!
It's a Pentax M 28mm f/2.8, and the button isn't a button at all - it's to show you where to line up the lens mount when you're attaching the lens :)
OMG! I just noticed your tattoo hahaha, nice music taste :)
Thank you!!
Great guide.
Thanks Sebastian!
The thing that helped me get sharper and sharper images was not being afraid of higher shutter speeds and deep depth of fields. I always thought, "I bought this f2.8 lens... so I'm keeping this thing at f2.8." I also thought higher shutter speeds would kill motion blur and look fake, but honestly it hasn't been true in my experience.
I'm ALWAYS looking for more ways to achieve sharp focus, so I'm really looking forward to trying this method out.
Completely agree with you - my default is 1/500th and f/8 and I almost never leave it!
@@huntercreatesthingshow do you adjust for lighting conditions while zone focusing? Noob here
do you know if this would work well for low light/concert/live music stuff?
Not so good - generally in low light you need to shoot wide open or close to it, so unless you're an absolute chad at estimating distance your zone probably too small at F2 and wider
If you cant see something far you squint right? Same thing with a lens
That's actually a weirdly good way of explaining it
kitchensink |-/ 👽
❤️
No, you can’t. Zone focus is a useful technique for using with a manual focus lens. Using zone focus with the required depth of field results in a combination of lower shutter speeds and higher iso’s compared to what you could get with a wider aperture and AF. Nothing beats a modern mirrorless AF system like Canon or Sony.
If you are zone focussed then focussing takes 0.00 seconds which is faster than Sony even if it's 0.01 seconds
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Thank you! Welcome aboard