Lost my touch, I guess

[TonyTurley]

Yesterday, I took a drive to one of the most remote, beautiful places I've ever visited in our state, Glade Creek Trail. It's a rather rough trail for a bike ride, but the scenery is second to none. Glade Creek is a wild, roaring stream that is both swift and deep. It also has a lot of small cascades flowing off the hillsides, and one particular scene caught my eye.

I set my A7II + Konica AR 28/3.5 on my tripod, low to the ground to get a better perspective. Checked the focus in the EVF, everything looked spot on. Fired off a few images using the timer, previewed them, and they looked OK. Got home, and found they were all out of focus. Don't know what I did wrong, but you can see the foreground is out of focus, while the log in the background is in focus. I was very disappointed, because I really like this composition.

Lately I've found my keeper rate with MF lenses seems to have dropped. I've used legacy lenses for a long time, but I've lost out on some images because of my technique. The images I took with my G80 and PL 12-60 yesterday had no such issue. Might be time to chuck my Konica lenses on eBay and invest in an e-mount lens after all.

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[addieleman]

Yesterday, I took a drive to one of the most remote, beautiful places I've ever visited in our state, Glade Creek Trail. It's a rather rough trail for a bike ride, but the scenery is second to none. Glade Creek is a wild, roaring stream that is both swift and deep. It also has a lot of small cascades flowing off the hillsides, and one particular scene caught my eye.

I set my A7II + Konica AR 28/3.5 on my tripod, low to the ground to get a better perspective. Checked the focus in the EVF, everything looked spot on. Fired off a few images using the timer, previewed them, and they looked OK. Got home, and found they were all out of focus. Don't know what I did wrong, but you can see the foreground is out of focus, while the log in the background is in focus. I was very disappointed, because I really like this composition.

Lately I've found my keeper rate with MF lenses seems to have dropped. I've used legacy lenses for a long time, but I've lost out on some images because of my technique. The images I took with my G80 and PL 12-60 yesterday had no such issue. Might be time to chuck my Konica lenses on eBay and invest in an e-mount lens after all.

View attachment 99221

That sucks, losing a shot because of missed focus. I get perfectly focussed pictures by using magnified view combined with peaking; I'm not successful with peaking without magnified view. I'd be hugely frustrated if I had to give up manual focus because that would mean I couldn't use Loxia or Voigtländer lenses.

 

[grillec]

I can feel your disappointment. Lately I've got the feeling my hitrate for sharp photos focused manually is decreasing, too. A lot more backfocus.

 

[bdbits]

I used to use focus peaking a lot, and still do occasionally. But I use focus magnification far more now. And when I want to be really sure, I will display and magnify the image. The EVF resolution isn't great and can be deceiving when fully zoomed out (regular view), but magnified I can usually tell if I have nailed the focus or not.

The other thing I was thinking might be a factor was that you are normally shooting with m4/3, right? Which is a 2x crop factor. For the same composition you would use on m4/3, on a full-frame sensor you will generally be working with a shorter depth of field. (Not strictly due to sensor size per se, and it gets kind of complicated, but the net is usually a shallower DOF.) This might be an adjustment you need to think about when working with the A7ii.

 

[WNG]

I always rely on the magnified view, as others have pointed to. Other than that, check the diopter hasn't been bumped. And perhaps having the ol' eyes checked to see if a new prescription is necessary. I know I can use a fresh set of glasses. Sucks getting old!

 

[TonyTurley]

Good thought on the diopter, Will, but that wasn't it. I seem to do better with landscape views where the DOF range is wider. And Bob has a valid point about adding a FF camera when all I've been using for a long time is mu4/3. Thanks for the input, everyone. Sucks to lose a composition I liked, but I just have to keep working on it.

 

[GoldMark]

anyway a nice picture

 

[Antonio Correia]

TonyTurley, do not blame the camera to begin with. Blame yourself.
Make some shots with the same combo and try to check if everything is OK. Sometimes we do not see our own mistakes even passing the eye on them over and over.
Is your sensor in good health ? I mean, haven't you been cleaning it and... you know

 

[Richard Crowe]

A tip that I once received and that has worked for me when manually focusing, using Focus Peaking, is to shoot RAW + JPEG and have my JPEG set black and white. This will show me the image in the viewfinder or on the LED as black and white. It is easier for me to use a color peaking on a black and white image because there are no colors to interfere with the peaking colors. Your RAW image will be recorded normally in color.

I tend to do better with manually focusing longer focal lengths using focus peaking than focusing with shorter focal lengths because, a smaller area of the image will be in focus with the long focal lengths. I also find that sometimes, I do better with a lower degree of focus peaking than other times. It depends on the subject and the lens I am using...