What’s difference between full or 0.5m-Infinity on Canon 32mm f/1.4 and how or when to use them?

Hello, here’s Jason. I recently purchased new Canon 32mm f/1.4. I have to say it’s worth. I am little bit confused about how or when to use difference between full and 0.5m-Infinity. If I want to focus on something, maybe 0.5-Infinity? If I am doing report during video, set it to full with nice background blurry? Like I said I am new with this. Thanks and waiting for response and education of experience from one of you. Thumb up.

jcrtorrres007 said:

Hello, here’s Jason. I recently purchased new Canon 32mm f/1.4. I have to say it’s worth. I am little bit confused about how or when to use difference between full and 0.5m-Infinity. If I want to focus on something, maybe 0.5-Infinity? If I am doing report during video, set it to full with nice background blurry? Like I said I am new with this. Thanks and waiting for response and education of experience from one of you. Thumb up.

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The Focus Limiter Switch has a rather specific use. For almost all your photography with this lens you'll want to leave it set to 'FULL' which means it will focus on anything near or far away. But if you want to shoot something through grass, or through the wire of a fence, you can set the switch to '0.5m - INFINITY' This will ensure that the lens will not focus on anything nearby (within a few feet). Canon uploaded several sample pictures which were taken with the Focus Limiter Switch set to the 0.5m-INFINITY setting (see first two images below).
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To be perfectly honest, I've taken around 22,000 shots with this lens and I've never bothered to use the Focus Limiter Switch at all. It's just set to 'FULL' all the time on my lens. It's possible that this setting might be useful when tracking objects with video but Canon appear to have added this switch just in case folks want the freedom to use this lens at a museum or a zoo where they might want to shoot a subject on the other side of a glass wall or wire fence. The sample below show what they had in mind although you can usually still get the same shot with the switch set to 'FULL'. It's just a matter of deciding where you want to put the focus.
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The extremely shallow DOF with this lens offers more creative types of photography. Another benefit of a Focus Limiter Switch is to prevent excessive focus travel (where the lens elements are shifting from their Closeup position to their Infinity position. Using a switch like this can therefor speed up AF since the lens array doesn't have to shift nearly as much because the closeup arrangement is effectively disabled. That's why this type of switch is usually found on Macro and long Telephoto lenses.
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32mm - CANON SUPPLIED IMAGE - Focus Limiter set to '0.5m-INFINITY'


32mm - CANON SUPPLIED IMAGE - Focus Limiter set to '0.5m-INFINITY'


32mm - One of my own shots with the Focus Limiter set to 'FULL'


32mm - One of my own shots with the Focus Limiter set to 'FULL'

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Regards,
Marco Nero.

I use the limiter almost all the time to speed up focusing. Only while shooting close ups the limiter is switched off.

Yeah I use it (limiter on) to speed up aquisition of focus on non-closeup work. It stops the focus hunting quite so much. I never thought of the other advantage of shooting through grass or wire fence etc, but Marco has a good tip there.

Let me see if I can understand clear. Your explanation is helpful and great. Let’s saying if I want to focus on closer subject like focusing on flowers for instance, that means I would need to use full. If I want to focus on people in portrait style or building, I should use 0.5 to infinity (focus limiter)? When I am using 32mm f/1.4, to do vlog few distance away from me, I assume I should use 0.5 to infinity due to faster auto focus and background blur? I am rookie and it’s my first and new lenses.

jcrtorrres007 said:

Let me see if I can understand clear. Your explanation is helpful and great. Let’s saying if I want to focus on closer subject like focusing on flowers for instance, that means I would need to use full. If I want to focus on people in portrait style or building, I should use 0.5 to infinity (focus limiter)? When I am using 32mm f/1.4, to do vlog few distance away from me, I assume I should use 0.5 to infinity due to faster auto focus and background blur? I am rookie and it’s my first and new lenses.

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Yes, that's about right. The purpose of the Focus Limiter Switch is to enable the photographer to ignore objects in the foreground that might attract the attention of the Auto Focus. If there's some fence wire or grass between you and the distant subject you wish to focus on, you may want to use this feature to ignore the grass or the fence wire. Personally, I have not found a situation where I needed to ignore the foreground but it might arise someday.
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With the touch screen, you can move the AF reticule anywhere you want... but since this lens is capable of focusing on very close objects, there may be a need for it. I imagine that shooting with this lens at a hockey game might result in a bunch of pictures where only the fence wire was in focus instead of the players. Here's some shots that I took in 2008 with a completely different camera that might better illustrate why a Focus Limiter Switch might be useful...
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Here's how close I was sitting to the fence. The 32mm lens might try to lock onto the wire.


...Like this....


Shooting through the fence

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The main reason they added this feature to this particular lens is because the 32mm lens has an f/1.4 aperture which results in a strong shallow depth of field. This enables quite a bit of so-called "creative photography" where different areas of the image can selectively be chosen to be out of focus or blurred.
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But since I usually prefer to target the subject closest to me, I tend not to leave the Focus Limiter Switch in any other position other than "FULL".
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[ATTACH alt="Most of the time I either want the foreground subject in focus or I can use the AF reticule to select my own target. For this reason, I leave the switch on my lens set to "Full" "]media_3810990[/ATTACH]
Most of the time I either want the foreground subject in focus or I can use the AF reticule to select my own target. For this reason, I leave the switch on my lens set to "Full"

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Regards,
Marco Nero.

In addition to the above, the focus limiter may allow for slightly quicker autofocus in some circumstances.