Focus Peaking

[MacUser2]

My 5D4 does not have an articulating rear screen nor can I do focus peaking with it. These are two features that I decided are now important to my picture taking. However, I am not prepared to spend several thousand dollars to buy a new camera in order to get these capabilities.

"Feel World" is running a sale on their 5.5" P6X field monitor. (B&H has a slightly better price than Amazon). The Feel World documentation leaves a lot to be desired, but by using a lot of four letter Anglo-Saxon expletives I was able to make it work.

I manually focus-peaked on leading petal and then stepped through 9 images until the top of the last petal was in focus. It was "kind of fun" watching how the location of the focus mask changed as I worked through the stack

Here is a screen shot of my first keeper using my new toy. Not perfect, but quite a bit better than I was able to get using my tired eyes to set the focus.

 

[jim mij]

Nice, it seems to have extended the life of your camera


is that variegated leaves, of holes akin to a cheese plant ?

 

[macrouser]

It has come out well. My eyes or not very good and I use anything that works.

 

[ASR45]

Nice I have the same set up.

 

[DrJonB]

Great result and beautiful flower

 

[Person9]

These external monitors are a very nice tool, both in the studio and outdoors. A big, bright tiltable screen with focus peaking, histogram, overexposure indication, zoom-in, and also many other features for video work.

The unit mentioned by MacUser2 is 5.5" (a lot bigger than the 3" LCD screen on most cameras), but are also available 6" and 7". Particularly indoors, the large screens are a joy to use.

For outdoor work, an NP-F type batter is required. A suggestion for handheld photography: use the smallest (lightest) battery to keep weight of monitor + battery at a minimum. Then keep a spare battery or two in your pocket.

Photos below are two typical configurations.

Lester Lefkowitz, author of The Manual of Close-Up and Macro Photography, Volumes I & II

www.MacroPhotographer.net