:: Live-view focus
| Aperture: | f/16 |
|---|---|
| Focal Length: | 100mm |
| ISO: | 800 |
| Shutter: | 1/50 sec |
| Camera: | Canon EOS 5D Mark III |
Raindrops on Orchid, Lava Tree State Park, Hawaii
* * * *
Some photographers don’t trust their vision enough to manually focus. But if you have a tripod and digital camera with live view, here’s a technique that could change your (photographic) life.
- Compose your shot on the tripod
- Turn on live view (if it isn’t already on)
- Position the live-view’s placement marker (usually a small square that can be moved with the camera’s arrow keys or joystick) over the point at which you want to focus
- Magnify the view to maximum
- Focus
- Click
I particularly like this technique for macro photography, where even a fraction-of-an-inch miss can mean failure, but it works well for any scene.
The only thing in this frame that had to be sharp was the raindrop at the base of the poppy. Adding an extension tube and dialing in my widest aperture gave me the extremely soft background I wanted, but narrowed my margin of focus error to just about zero. Using my camera’s live view, I magnified the raindrop 10x, focused, and clicked. Mission accomplished.
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5 comments on “:: Live-view focus”
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Your statement is so true and simple Gary and yet we (especial I) fail to do so when presented with an photo opportunity. Sometimes I feel a self impose rush or believe its requires too much complex complications or too difficult to set up and believe the results wouldn’t be worth it. Obviously from your results, they are worth it. Thanks for reenforcing the basic’s, yet again.
The beauty of digital photography is that, unlike film, each shutter click is free. Not only that, nobody else needs to see your failures, not even the guy in the lab. So if you experiment freely when things aren’t happening fast, you’ll soon find that what you learn then has become second nature when it’s time to react.
Oh so true Gary-I have friends that think I’m crazy when I bring this up but it has changed the way I capture macros-thanks for driving this home. Great image.
I’m enjoying your articles, Gary.
I’ve been a live view convert for several months, and I want to echo what you’ve said here about it. Now that I’m using live view, it’s hard to imagine how I got good macro shots before.
I also use live view for sunrise and sunset images: set everything to manual, choose an ISO speed (usually 100 or 200, depending upon how dark it is), set the aperture, and adjust the exposure while watching live view until I get exactly the image I want. It takes all of the guesswork and trial-and-error out of getting exactly the right exposure to show off those sunset colors.
I’m guessing this technique may work well for rainbows, too, but I haven’t had an opportunity yet to try that out.