I'll second the use of the hyperfocal distance setting with an MF lens. Also up some perfect conditions for yourself, e.g., subject at a known distance, steady the camera, etc, and see how they come out. Try to get a sense of how good focus actually looks int he viewfinder. BTW, just for kicks, be sure the diopter setting is accurate.
The preceding has been has been a message from someone who has screwed up all of these. On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 9:05 AM, Matthew Hunt <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 8:40 AM, Eric Weir <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I remain frustrated at my inability to get well-focused shots. Saturday I >> was out exploring neighborhoods around the community in which I work and had >> my camera along. I came across an adult pickup soccer game on one of the >> school playing fields. I stopped and sat in the shade with a group guys who >> were taking a break from the game. Then I went out of the field and shot >> about a 100 images. >> >> I was looking forward to seeing the result. It was sunny mid-morning. The >> camera's a *ist DS. The lens was an M 135/3.5. ISO was 200. Aperture was >> mostly around f11. About half the images were shot at 1/250, half at 1/180. >> I kept focus set at infinity. >> >> I thought surely, at that speed, with that focus, at the distance at which I >> was shooting I'd get a few sharp well-composed images. A handful -- less >> than five -- are so-so, but not really sharp. The rest are all fuzzy. > > According to the Online Depth of Field Calculator(*), if your lens is > set to infinity focus & f/11, the near edge of the depth of field is > about 264 feet away. That's most of a football field; it doesn't > surprise me that many of your photos are not sharp. If you instead > focused the lens at the hyperfocal distance (the same 264 feet for > f/11), the depth of field would extend from 132 feet to infinity, so > that would be better, but still maybe not good enough, and depending > on the focus scale markings, it might be hard to set the lens to that > focus distance precisely, anyway. > > Also, for sports, 1/250 - 1/180 is a little slow. You might be seeing > motion blur in the subjects, not just focus error. > > I'd probably go a little higher on the ISO, a little faster on the > shutter speed, and consequently a larger (smaller number) aperture. I > don't know much about soccer, but in many sports it helps to pre-focus > on something (like a base, in baseball) and shoot when the action is > there. Shooting sports with MF takes practice. > > (*) http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- Steve Desjardins -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
