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Focusing using manual lenses

Started May 22, 2017 | Questions thread
newmikey Veteran Member • Posts: 5,203
Re: Focusing using manual lenses

gaetanonline wrote:

Hi!

I love my Pentax and I sometimes use manual lenses with it.

I have da problem about focusing. I use catch-in-focus and all settings are fine.

I see camera always use center point to focus.

When I shoot half-lenght portraits at f.2/8 eyes are out of focus.

I tried to "focus and recompose technique" but I still have the same problem.

In my opinion that's because the focus point is not the head (the eyes) but it's lower, so even if focus plane is in focus, focus point is not.

Maybe I could solve the problem using smaller apertures f.5/6 or shooting only headshot for portrais

How do you suggest to solve the problem if I want to go on using manual lenses?

I suppose with portraits you'd want to either focus in live view or use a split-image focusing screen. Catch-in focus is incredibly handy and powerful but as you have noticed it does run into an issue in specific situations such as close-up portraits. Of course, increasing DOF by using a smaller aperture will also work but will defeat the main reason of using such lovely f2.8 lenses to begin with.

 newmikey's gear list:newmikey's gear list
Pentax KP Pentax smc DA* 50-135mm F2.8 ED (IF) SDM Sigma 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 DC HSM Sigma 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM Pentax 16-85mm F3.5-5.6 WR +2 more
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