Having the scene focused front to back is one of the very important aspects of landscape photography. But more often than not, it’s pretty tricky to achieve it. In this video, Mads Peter Iversen shares some very useful tips and techniques for landscape photographers. They will help you get the entire scene in focus and achieve perfect front-to-back focus in every scenario.
Back Button Focus – What it is and why you might want to use it
Yes, we’re bringing up back button focus. This is one of those things that regularly seems to split the camera owning public. One side swears by it, the other side can’t stand it or just doesn’t see the point. But, like many things in photography, it’s just another way of doing something. In this case, focusing your lens.
In this video, photographer Pierre Lambert looks at what back button focus is, and when it might be beneficial to use it. He also looks at when it may be more beneficial to do things the old fashioned way with a half press of the shutter.
Here’s a simple way to refocus your images in Photoshop after they were shot
With fancy dual and triple camera phones, you can set the depth of field of your images using a simple slider. But did you know you can do it in Photoshop, too, after you’ve taken the photo? Colin Smith of photoshopCAFE figured out a way to refocus images in Photoshop after they were shot, and he’s sharing it with you in his latest video tutorial.
How to make and use a Hartmann Mask for quick and easy focusing
The Hartmann mask and Scheiner Disk are simple devices for making focusing a lens easier. They require that you target is a point of light, such as a star or distant planet, therefore are no good for day-to-day use.
A Scheiner Disk is a mask with two holes, whereas a Hartman mask has many holes (typically three).
The mask is like a lens cap with holes in. The holes are positioned in such a way that when out of focus, they cause multiple diffraction images as shown in the first image. As the lens is focused they merge into a single point, and then beyond focus, they separate again.
How To Calibrate The Focus of Your Lenses – And Why You Should do it
Here’s a (semi) fun way to start the year off right – it’s time to calibrate the focus of your lenses!
Most DSLRs offer options for “micro adjustment” or to “fine tune” the focus of attached lenses. If you happen to use Sigma ART series lenses, you can also use Sigma’s USB Dock for even more refined lens focus calibrations.
Panasonic’s Newly-Announced Post Focus Feature Perhaps Not As Awesome As Hoped
Welp… Proving once again how accurately I can predict the future, today Panasonic officially announced their focus-after-capture technology, called “Post Focus.” While it looks like the quality of the final images will be significantly improved over the Lytro Illum since they will be composites of 4K video frames, I don’t see it being very useful.
Panasonic Reportedly Building Focus-After-Capture Feature Into Upcoming Cameras
We’ve seen previous unveilings of post-focusing cameras, such as the Lytro Illum, which allow the user to change the focus of the image after it’s already captured. And, a year ago, Sony even jumped on the bandwagon by acquiring their own patent for similar technology.
Now, according to reports, all Panasonic 4K-compatible cameras released in the next year will have built-in focus adjustment capabilities. Booyah.
Lytro’s New 40-Megaray Camera Is Nothing Like Their Previous Toy
Post-production focusing is something that’s gotten a good amount of attention in the past two months, thanks to the new HTC One and Google’s latest Camera update. But those guys weren’t the first to mess with the technology. Two years ago, a company named Lytro introduced the world’s first light-field camera, which allowed the refocusing of pictures after they’ve been shot already. Their first camera, however, was nothing more that a nice gadget with no real use. Today, the company announced their second entry into the game, and it’s absolutely nothing like what they released back in 2012.
Freelensing: Un-Focus To Tell a More Dynamic Story
So often we are distracted by what we see, sucked in by that which is right in front of us. Each day can be a battle of not missing the forest for the trees, and losing track of the big picture, both metaphorically and literally, is a demon to which we frequently fall prey. But, life is as much about the unseen as it is the seen…it is more honest to say that it is what’s lurking in the shadows that truly defines us rather than what the world around us seems to see.
This concept, when considered in photography, is as much philosophical as it is visual. There are thousands of tutorials on how to maintain a sharp focus or isolate a subject or achieve that perfect image. But, life, which is the literal reflection of art, is not sharp or clearly-defined or nice and perfect. It’s not! What if more contemporary photography chose to focus on the imperfect, the beauty in the flaws, and creation by suggestion rather than destruction by defining? [Read More…]
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