When I got into street photography, I was always reliant on automatic focussing or manual focussing and I was constantly frustrated as I could not capture those fleeting moments that classic photographers were able to capture. I thought there must be something wrong with my eye/finger coordination or neuro connections. My subjects had to be pretty static or very slow and I was generally not that satisfied with my results. Then I heard about Zone Focus. It transformed my street photography. This magical method seemed to do the trick, but I still had trouble in getting the results because I usually misinterpreted the distances. So, I devised this method which I recently divulged in a post on a social networking site to a friend who expressed difficulty using the method, which spurred this post. It was posted as follows:
" Think of a good friend that you have in mind very well, their height. You must know how tall they are. Now imagine that day when for some reason they have gone nuts or knocked out drunk and lied on the floor. You stood there at their feet looking at their face. Now, on the street with your camera, re-imagine that moment. My friend was 1.5m which is 5 feet. That's my close working distance with a 35 to 50mm lens. 2 or 3x my friend on the floor is 4.5m or 15 feet. It fits loads in with a 35mm lens. I set my camera, closing the aperture to at least f8 (of course after loading a film of 400 or above to give me fast shutter speeds) and at f8 I should have a free focus area between "my friends unconscious face" and another 2 or 3 times my friend's unconscious body distance with a relatively wider lens. With a really wide lens that can be from 1m to infinity. So everything is in focus regardless. |That's how I started and it has worked for me ever since.So, knocked out friends can be of use see? :D"
So, I thought I would share with you and I hope it got you in good spirits and humour as it did me, still laughing recalling how I developed my way of doing it and hope it can be of help to you, dear readers! :)
Keep an eye out for the up coming Fujica Auto-M and Fujica 35EE review to be posted soon.
Until next time,
Luis
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