CP990 manual infinity focus blurred?

clausiam · Sep 10, 2001

I recently took some photos with my CP990 set to manual focus at "INF". They came out pretty blurred as if out of focus. Most were at a distance of 20-30m (60-90ft). Since manual focus jumps from 10m/30ft to INF would I have been better off setting it to 10m? Aperture was around f6. Shouldn't the DOF (especially on this type of lense) give sharp results at the distance mentioned above? Is the CP990 INF setting just not very good?
-- Claus

JohnK · Sep 10, 2001

Member said:
Is the CP990 INF setting just not very good?
Claus

I had a similar issue with my 950, so I set up the 950 and the 990 and took the same long shot cityscape with each camera with each focus setting (auto, infinity, and macro- I forgot about maual infinity that you set with the command wheel, and will do this test again), to see which was best. To my eye, the shots taken in Macro were sharpest. Now we're talking a pixel worth of difference, still I'm gonna try to shoot more in macro... test yours and see which setting is sharpest.
JohnK

clausiam · Sep 10, 2001

JohnK said:
JohnK said:

Is the CP990 INF setting just not very good?
Claus

Click to expand...

I had a similar issue with my 950, so I set up the 950 and the 990
and took the same long shot cityscape with each camera with each
focus setting (auto, infinity, and macro- I forgot about maual
infinity that you set with the command wheel, and will do this test
again), to see which was best.

The reason I was talking about Manual INF is that I needed the Manual focus to limit lag-times as I was doing some action shots. It was not just a tiny bit out of focus either in fact they were pretty much useless. I will take some more test shots and post the results. Thanks.

Claus

Jeff58322 · Sep 10, 2001

My 990's INF photos (both in manual focus and other) are complete crap, regardless of how far from the lense you look. I"ve wondered this myself - thanks for asking, wish I could help. It would be very useful for sports photography if it actually worked.

clausiam · Sep 10, 2001

Jeff Kardas said:
My 990's INF photos (both in manual focus and other) are complete
crap, regardless of how far from the lense you look. I"ve wondered
this myself - thanks for asking, wish I could help. It would be
very useful for sports photography if it actually worked.

Thanks Jeff, guess it's not just mine then. It was exactly for sports I needed it. I guess I could set it to 10m/30ft, go to aperture priority and set a sufficiently low aperture to make DOF take care of the sharpness. The drawback is ofcourse that then I may get a slower than desired shutter time leading to motion blur. Then I could bump up the ISO and live with the added noise. Aaargh, none of the options seem very good...

Claus

jim g. · Sep 10, 2001

Jeff Kardas said:
My 990's INF photos (both in manual focus and other) are complete
crap, regardless of how far from the lense you look. I"ve wondered
this myself - thanks for asking, wish I could help. It would be
very useful for sports photography if it actually worked.

Jeff, et al.

I've experimented quite a bit with manual focus for shooting
soccer photos with my 990. With only the native lens, I found
that setting manual focus at 30ft gave me virtually unlimited dof
(at least in bright sunlight). The far background would be as
sharp as the action right in front of me. You might give it
a try.

Btw, I usually use a TCE2/Tcon14B combo now and found that
I needed to modifiy my technique and use the auto focus. It
works well, but you have to anticipate and be quick.

Good luck,

Jim

p.s. I'm having a brain cramp and I can't remember for absolute
certainty whether it was 30meters or 30feet. The 30 is correct....
Sorry.

clausiam · Sep 10, 2001

jim said:
I've experimented quite a bit with manual focus for shooting
soccer photos with my 990. With only the native lens, I found
that setting manual focus at 30ft gave me virtually unlimited dof

Thanks Jim, I wil give that a shot (pun intended)

I am using the the "onboard" lens only.

jim g. said:
p.s. I'm having a brain cramp and I can't remember for absolute
certainty whether it was 30meters or 30feet. The 30 is correct....

30ft/10m is the last setting before it jumps to INF.

Claus

Jeff58322 · Sep 10, 2001

Right, shutter speed and focus are the two key elements in my mind when looking at sports photos. My primary subjects are motorcycles moving toward, directly in front of, and away from me. I typically do these with shutter priority, ISO200-400 (outdoors), and try real hard for 1/1000 shutter unless I see the aperture wide open, in which case I relax to 1/500. I am forced to auto focus on a spot of ground - hold the trigger until my subject approaches and pan with him until he hits the sweet spot, then release the shutter. You can see the results at http://www.ktmkardy.net . I do wish I could get INF to work with good DOF though, so I feel your pain!

Member said:
Thanks Jeff, guess it's not just mine then. It was exactly for
sports I needed it. I guess I could set it to 10m/30ft, go to
aperture priority and set a sufficiently low aperture to make DOF
take care of the sharpness. The drawback is ofcourse that then I
may get a slower than desired shutter time leading to motion blur.
Then I could bump up the ISO and live with the added noise. Aaargh,
none of the options seem very good...

Claus

JohnK · Sep 10, 2001

clausiam said:
jim said:

I've experimented quite a bit with manual focus for shooting

Click to expand...

clausiam · Sep 10, 2001

With "prefocus" do you mean half-pressing shutter on something at a comparitive distance to the subject? That will be a pain with subjects that move closer or further away all the time (soccer). When you prefocus you don't know if that good action happens in 5 seconds and 30 feet closer than where the players are now. So you would have to constantly prefocus and you may miss the action while you do. I think that approach works better for more predictable action like motorsport, cycling etc where the direction of movement is more or less known ahead of time.
I'm sure I'll find a good way to do this - thanks for your input John!

Claus

jim g. · Sep 10, 2001

clausiam said:
With "prefocus" do you mean half-pressing shutter on something at a
comparitive distance to the subject? That will be a pain with
subjects that move closer or further away all the time (soccer).
When you prefocus you don't know if that good action happens in 5
seconds and 30 feet closer than where the players are now. So you
would have to constantly prefocus and you may miss the action while
you do. I think that approach works better for more predictable
action like motorsport, cycling etc where the direction of movement
is more or less known ahead of time.
I'm sure I'll find a good way to do this - thanks for your input John!

Claus,
I have over 2000 images from last soccer season. Almost all were shot
manual-focus. It works out well, but this year I am using auto focus. It's

pretty much required with the additional lenses, but also I get a higher percentage of keepers.

You have to 1/2 press anyway in order to pre-meter, it takes only slightly

longer to focus. You can make that up in anticipation. I try for as much dof as possible to allow for player motion, but the shutter is usually
at 1/1000 or 1/500. On good day I get f7.0.

Anyway, don't write-off auto focus completely.

Have fun!

jim

Jeff19577 · Sep 10, 2001

You guys might want to check this thread

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1007&message=1489483

which I cross reference to an earlier thread showing the same problem with my 995 and how I got it fixed by Nikon!

Jeff

jim said:
clausiam said:

With "prefocus" do you mean half-pressing shutter on something at a
comparitive distance to the subject? That will be a pain with
subjects that move closer or further away all the time (soccer).
When you prefocus you don't know if that good action happens in 5
seconds and 30 feet closer than where the players are now. So you
would have to constantly prefocus and you may miss the action while
you do. I think that approach works better for more predictable
action like motorsport, cycling etc where the direction of movement
is more or less known ahead of time.
I'm sure I'll find a good way to do this - thanks for your input John!

Click to expand...

Claus,
I have over 2000 images from last soccer season. Almost all were shot
manual-focus. It works out well, but this year I am using auto
focus. It's
pretty much required with the additional lenses, but also I get a
higher percentage of keepers.

You have to 1/2 press anyway in order to pre-meter, it takes only
slightly
longer to focus. You can make that up in anticipation. I try for
as much dof as possible to allow for player motion, but the shutter
is usually
at 1/1000 or 1/500. On good day I get f7.0.

Anyway, don't write-off auto focus completely.

Have fun!

jim

Richard Hodge · Sep 10, 2001

Jeff Kardas said:
Right, shutter speed and focus are the two key elements in my mind
when looking at sports photos. My primary subjects are motorcycles
moving toward, directly in front of, and away from me. I typically
do these with shutter priority, ISO200-400 (outdoors), and try real
hard for 1/1000 shutter unless I see the aperture wide open, in
which case I relax to 1/500. I am forced to auto focus on a spot
of ground - hold the trigger until my subject approaches and pan
with him until he hits the sweet spot, then release the shutter.
You can see the results at http://www.ktmkardy.net . I do wish I
could get INF to work with good DOF though, so I feel your pain!

How do you get your "trigger" to hold this long? My half shutter compsure lets go in 10-15 seconds? R

Pat C · Sep 10, 2001

Hi Claus.

I've set my 990 at 30 ft. & shot action & everything seemed to be in focus from about 15 ft. on out to infinity with most of the intermediate f stops--good luck--Pat C.

clausiam said:
I recently took some photos with my CP990 set to manual focus at
"INF". They came out pretty blurred as if out of focus. Most were
at a distance of 20-30m (60-90ft). Since manual focus jumps from
10m/30ft to INF would I have been better off setting it to 10m?
Aperture was around f6. Shouldn't the DOF (especially on this type
of lense) give sharp results at the distance mentioned above? Is
the CP990 INF setting just not very good?

--
Claus

Jeff58322 · Sep 11, 2001

10-15 secs is usually long enough. If it isn't , then those are the shots that don't turn out! I only bat about .250 at a motocross race.

Richard Hodge said:
Jeff Kardas said:

Right, shutter speed and focus are the two key elements in my mind
when looking at sports photos. My primary subjects are motorcycles
moving toward, directly in front of, and away from me. I typically
do these with shutter priority, ISO200-400 (outdoors), and try real
hard for 1/1000 shutter unless I see the aperture wide open, in
which case I relax to 1/500. I am forced to auto focus on a spot
of ground - hold the trigger until my subject approaches and pan
with him until he hits the sweet spot, then release the shutter.
You can see the results at http://www.ktmkardy.net . I do wish I
could get INF to work with good DOF though, so I feel your pain!

Click to expand...

How do you get your "trigger" to hold this long? My half shutter
compsure lets go in 10-15 seconds? R

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