Philip Brown wrote:
...aimed for the face...

When i reviewed the first few, on laptop, everything was in lovely focus.. EXCEPT for the eyes. Just a little off.

You should be aiming for the closest eye.

With that said, when shooting at wide apertures and depending on distance, it may catch focus on the eye lashes and the DOF may not reach the eyes. 

Why are you shooting at f2.2 in a studio?  Was there some background you are trying to blur out?  If not, stop it down more like f4 to f8.

Black Z Eddie wrote:
Why are you shooting at f2.2 in a studio?  Was there some background you are trying to blur out?  If not, stop it down more like f4 to f8.

Yes actually.. my white backdrop wasnt exactly as clean as I would prefer, so I wanted to blur it.

But in later shots, I ended up switching to my telephoto and shooting at f5 anyway. (at 68mm/100 effective)

So you're saying at f5, facial autofocus shouldnt be a problem?
I dunno;  I might have tried it after lens swap and still had an issue. But among all the other details that are present in the meta info, the pics dont seem to show me info about focus type.
oh well. might try again another time.

JJ Helder wrote:
Always focus manually. Just look through some portfolio's here. Far to many shots focused on the eyelashes, nose or anything else that is closest to the camera. A portret should be crisply focused on the nearest eye, whatever aperture you shoot with. It will always show. Distributing focus is the most essential thing a photographer has to do. It is beyond me that anyone would leave that to the camera.

Thanks for the tip.
One question though:
I'm having a little difficulty locating the nearest eye in this pic of yours.
Is there some secret photographers hidden eye tecnique involved here?



eheheheh just kidding

Philip Brown wrote:
Thanks for the tip.
One question though:
I'm having a little difficulty locating the nearest eye in this pic of yours.
Is there some secret photographers hidden eye tecnique involved here?



eheheheh just kidding

Actually this example is completely motion blurred. And probably not in focus too. Must be due the absence of an eye. Manual focusing is difficult:)

Good luck!

Philip Brown wrote:
Since my last sony question was so well fielded, I'll give another one a go


I tried doing some small studio photos today. Initially used autofocus on the tight, center spot mode.
aimed for the face. squeezed the shutter halfway, waited for the beep, etc,etc.

When i reviewed the first few, on laptop, everything was in lovely focus.. EXCEPT for the eyes. Just a little off.

This was on tripod. 1/100th second.
Sony SEL50F18 lens at F/2.2 at about 15 feet away.
(Sony A5000)

Eventually I resorted to MANUAL focus... but ironically, using the sparklie focus assist for the eyes...
and THEN everything was beautiful.

Is there some mode that tells the camera "hey stupid, focus on the eyes, not the nose"?


[hm. googled before pressing the "new thread" button. Alpha SIX thousand actually has an explicit "Eye Autofocus" mode. but not a5000!   Arrg !  ]

I'm going to guess that you were less than 15 feet away

With that lens on that sensor at 15 feet you'd be shooting 7.2 feet in height and the person head would be so small that you'd really have a hard time seeing the nose in focus and the eyes out of focus.

You'd have to be much closer to get half body or head and shoulders were it would matter.

At that point f2.2 would be an issue.

You can probably push the ISO on that camera to at least 3200 before it's an issue. So close the aperture a little and push the ISO to compensate. Like 2-3 stops, around 5.6. If you were at 200 that would only push you to 1600 and you'd be much happier.

Mikey McMichaels wrote:
I'm going to guess that you were less than 15 feet away

With that lens on that sensor at 15 feet you'd be shooting 7.2 feet in height and the person head would be so small that you'd really have a hard time seeing the nose in focus and the eyes out of focus.

You'd have to be much closer to get half body or head and shoulders were it would matter.

At that point f2.2 would be an issue.

You can probably push the ISO on that camera to at least 3200 before it's an issue. So close the aperture a little and push the ISO to compensate. Like 2-3 stops, around 5.6. If you were at 200 that would only push you to 1600 and you'd be much happier.

True, i was within 15 feet.

That being said.. nope on the ISO. I did some comparisons with the amount of light I had, and didnt like the results when I zoomed in.
3200 ISO is right out. 1600 is meh.
800 was tolerably acceptable. but I'm super picky, and hate ANY type of graininess in the image.
So dont like to go above 400 for indoor.
Was really surprised, given that I had researched the output of this camera on https://www.imaging-resource.com before I bought it.

Herman Surkis wrote:
What is being missed in this conversation, is that at 2.8 or there about, assuming the camera is on a tripod, the subjects breathing could be taking the eye in and out of focus. And good luck between shots. So for each shot you would need to re-focus. Manually takes forever, auto-focus, good luck on knowing exactly where the focus point really is. (you can test the focus points, and some will actually remember in the heat of the shoot).

i stick to single focus point center target


I dunno... Hopefully, I'll have another in-house shoot this weekend, and then I'll be able to compare autofocus+tripod use , vs
manual focus use, when it actually counts.

random peeve:
the sony batch import tool, "playmemories@home" does not actually render the RAW previews fully.
Its previewer is like 90% accurate. Good enough for basic views, but not good for full focus analysis.
So when I was first looking at the test batch I did, I thought they were ALL slightly out of focus.

Then I found out they were all IN focus, when I used the full viewer.

In theory I'll be shooting tethered next time, so will have the benefit of the full viewer. but.. i'm still annoyed about it.

Philip Brown wrote:

i stick to single focus point center target


I dunno... Hopefully, I'll have another in-house shoot this weekend, and then I'll be able to compare autofocus+tripod use , vs
manual focus use, when it actually counts.

random peeve:
the sony batch import tool, "playmemories@home" does not actually render the RAW previews fully.
Its previewer is like 90% accurate. Good enough for basic views, but not good for full focus analysis.
So when I was first looking at the test batch I did, I thought they were ALL slightly out of focus.

Then I found out they were all IN focus, when I used the full viewer.

In theory I'll be shooting tethered next time, so will have the benefit of the full viewer. but.. i'm still annoyed about it.

Even the the centre point may not be where you think it is. It may show as focusing on the right lash but it is actually on the left one. It is not uncommon for the point to be the full distance away of the indicator. (little rectangle). It is easy to check. Auto focus or manually focus using the point. Then using the LCD manually focus on the exact same spot. If you use only a single line chart this will only tell how accurate the indicator is. If you use a multi line chart, then you look for what is truly in focus, and if a constant deviation then you know where the point truly is. On my D750 it is at the top right corner of the rectangle. Just slightly off.

Herman Surkis wrote:
Even the the centre point may not be where you think it is. It may show as focusing on the right lash but it is actually on the left one. It is not uncommon for the point to be the full distance away of the indicator. (little rectangle). It is easy to check. Auto focus or manually focus using the point. Then using the LCD manually focus on the exact same spot. If you use only a single line chart this will only tell how accurate the indicator is. If you use a multi line chart, then you look for what is truly in focus, and if a constant deviation then you know where the point truly is. On my D750 it is at the top right corner of the rectangle. Just slightly off.

holey smokes never even thought of that. I'll check it out sometime, thanks.

Philip Brown wrote:

holey smokes never even thought of that. I'll check it out sometime, thanks.

Me either! Granted my only AF is a WA, so the AF could be way sloppier and still nail it. But that's really good information to have.

And once you say it, it's so painfully obvious too. The box occupies such a (relatively) large part of the screen that if ALL of that box were AF sensor, and with many cameras having so many of them, where would the image sensors go?

Philip Brown wrote:
So.... I tested it. With my A5000, SEL50F18, AF center setting.

Aaand... apparently, its a "smart" box.

I tested it with a receipt standing up on edge on a table. So basically, a choice of near focus or far focus objects.
I dont think there was a single magic hotspot.

Rather, it seemed as though if there was something already in focus, and in the box...it would most of the time stay with that focus.

Except when it didnt
I think that when in doubt, it gives a little extra priority to foreground objects. Which seems somewhat legit, after all

So, really important to have focus peaking turned on. Whether using manual, OR autofocus!

It seems here you are conflating front or back focus errors with what I was talking about.

Here is a quick and dirty to check front and back focus. Or go precise with LensCal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3XK4hf-NF0

What I was talking about is that where you place the little rectangle may not be what is used for focusing. The rectangle may say the upper lashes, but the focus point is really the lower lashes (rarely is it that bad from what I have read), and it can change depending on which rectangle you use. (Ain't it fun?) This will happen whether you are in auto-focus or manual, as long as you depend on the "In focus indicator". Those doing product or macro, will use the LCD at 100% with manual focus. If what is important is in focus on the LCD, it is probably as good as it's going to get.

And sometimes you get lucky and it all does what it is supposed to. I suggest at that point buying a bunch of Power Ball tickets.

I started playing with those factors, and quickly discovered what a PITA. Decided that I am rarely that fussy, and if it appears sharp, that is good enough for me.

YMMV

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi … mp;bih=824

And of course I cannot find where this issue and the testing was discussed.

However one good thing is that any deviation between what you see with the rectangle, and what it is really doing will be consistent, so you simple adapt.

For example if you know that when you put the rectangle on the lower lashes, it will be the upper ones that will be sharp, then you just have to remember that when you want the upper lashes sharp, you put the rectangle on the lower ones.
Does not work that well for me, since in the heat of the shoot, my mind blanks, and I almost always put the rectangle on what I want sharp. Thankfully 'close enough' is usually good enough.

Philip Brown wrote:
Since I'm all about sharing information, I'll share a sneaky shortcut I found to deal with this issue now.

I now use something with a stupid name, but a useful feature:
"DMF" focus setting. == "Direct Manual Focus".

AAAAnd.. now I do something else
I've found out how to set up what I guess is generically called "back button focus", on my Sony A5000.
Note that the steps are slightly DIFFERENT from an A6000, which is more commonly documented now. So i figure its worth writing it down here.


Step 1: set camera to pure MF (manual focus), not DMF
Step 2:  Custom Settings -> Custom Key Settings-> ? Button  = "AF/MF Control Hold"

With this set, there is no more "half press shutter to autofocus". When you want AF, you hold the "?" button until happy.
Then you're ready to push the shutter button as often as you want, without any delays or refocusing.
But if you WANT to fine tune focus,  of course you can as normal.

The typical A6000 instructions for this tend to say you should have the button programmed to "AF ON".
But on my A5000, doing this, does exactly nothing, as far as I could tell.
Hence the altered instructions.

Its not VERY different from my prior workflow. But its nice to have constant state of the shutter button. it isnt a toggle on/off any more. Plus, I dont have to worry about having to maintain half-press at the same time I focus any more either.
Win.

Inspired by the Sony forums over at
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/61341548

Herman Surkis wrote:
It seems here you are conflating front or back focus errors with what I was talking about.

Here is a quick and dirty to check front and back focus. Or go precise with LensCal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3XK4hf-NF0

He is using mirroless camera.

PHP-Photography wrote:
He is using mirrorless camera.

He can still have front or back focusing errors even with a mirrorless.

Here is a shot of the focus tuning on an Olympus E-M1 Mark II with a zoom lens.  There are 25 zones to tune as well as a near and far for each when used with a zoom lens.  Major work (Overkill perhaps?) to address all 50 of them too.



I'll add I have the FocusTune software and LensAlign (Much like the LensCal) gizmo.  Problem is with a wide-angle lens and the extreme AF tuning points at the frame edges, the ruler scale may be so far off to one side you cannot set parts of it needed for the software to run.  The flat focus scale it needs to lock onto may also be on the wrong side of the slanted ruler at times as well.  Sort of a nightmare to use it with a lot of AF spots to select from.

What one needs is the FoCal with a really large target, but that only works with Canon and Nikon so far.  The FoCal maker is hoping to port it over to mirrorless since they added a lot more focus tuning spots for them verses the older DSLRs with a maybe only one or two to set and not 50 like Olympus did.

Philip Brown wrote:
Yes actually.. my white backdrop wasnt exactly as clean as I would prefer, so I wanted to blur it.

No one has mentioned this, but one solution is to light the backdrop. That is assuming you are looking for it to be white and are not coloring it with gels. With proper lighting you can even turn a grey backdrop pure white, so as long as the unclean places are not overly dark then lighting it should eliminate most or all of the problem without resorting to having to blur it. Any small residual spots are then easily cloned out. That in turn allows you to use your sharpest aperture.

GRMACK wrote:

He can still have front or back focusing errors even with a mirrorless.

Here is a shot of the focus tuning on an Olympus E-M1 Mark II with a zoom lens.  There are 25 zones to tune as well as a near and far for each when used with a zoom lens. .

grmack, I appreciate your willingness to help me.
What you dont realize, is that Sony (mirrorless, anyway)  cameras simply dont have that multi-zone thing.
That is to say, at no time do you get a popup of multiple points in your LCD, and camera asks you "hey pick which point you want me to use as primary focus".

My A5000, for example, gives a focal type choice of:

* Manual
* Center
* Wide
* "Zone"  (but it tells YOU "hey these spots are in focus", and its done with software, so it doesnt matter which one gets used)
* Flexible spot  (which is autotracking, I think)

Philip Brown wrote:

grmack, I appreciate your willingness to help me.
What you dont realize, is that Sony (mirrorless, anyway)  cameras simply dont have that multi-zone thing.
That is to say, at no time do you get a popup of multiple points in your LCD, and camera asks you "hey pick which point you want me to use as primary focus".

My A5000, for example, gives a focal type choice of:

* Manual
* Center
* Wide
* "Zone"  (but it tells YOU "hey these spots are in focus", and its done with software, so it doesnt matter which one gets used)
* Flexible spot  (which is autotracking, I think)

Ah, I see the Sony A5000 is what they call an "Entry point camera."  It probably doesn't have the ability to tune the AF system like their upper level cameras do (and maybe why it also lacks the eye focusing part as well, but that is a fairly recent innovation.).  Seems it is also left out of the A5100 too.

However, Sigma came along with their focus tuning dock and software for their ART lenses to address the non-tuneable cameras.  Some of the cheaper Nikons do not allow focus tuning either so Sigma made that possible with their dock and software that burns into the lens the corrections to its firmware.  I have their 35mm ART and used it on my old Nikon and it helped to a degree, but the newer systems can figure out the eye location as well as which eye is the closer eye and nail it better.  Sort of fun to watch the Olympus find a face or faces, mark them, and then hunt the eyes a second later and zero in on them even with their f/1.2 Pro lenses that have a very narrow DOF.

Could be your A5000 is just out of whack too with its age and needs some Sony TLC which might be pricey given its initial cost.  That, or it's time to upgrade.

Philip Brown wrote:
* Flexible spot  (which is autotracking, I think)

Not necessarily.  It's to set your movable area of focus instead of having it stuck on center with a big ass square; or, having it wide where it could focus anywhere.  You can change the size to small, medium, large.  I typically use small because it's about the size of the eye area.  I use the larger sizes in tricky/bad lighting conditions because sometimes it would have a hard time focusing on such a tiny spot.

Here's a vid by Gary Fong.  The flex spots starts around 2:42
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjaVyAz … mp;t=2m42s

GRMACK wrote:
Ah, I see the Sony A5000 is what they call an "Entry point camera."  It probably doesn't have the ability to tune the AF system like their upper level cameras do (and maybe why it also lacks the eye focusing part as well, but that is a fairly recent innovation.).  Seems it is also left out of the A5100 too.

I'm not sure if the a5000/a5100 have the Micro AF Adjust feature, but, for the Sony mirrorless (I have a6000,  A7RII, A7II) so long as you are using E-Mount (FF or Crop) lenses, you can't adjust it.  From what I read somewhere, it doesn't need it.  I've mix-matched FF and Crops in the past using my a6000 + Sony FF 28 f2; and A7RII + Sony Crops 35 f1.8 and 50 f1.8, never really notice it miss consistently on still subjects.

GRMACK wrote:

He can still have front or back focusing errors even with a mirrorless.

Here is a shot of the focus tuning on an Olympus E-M1 Mark II with a zoom lens.  There are 25 zones to tune as well as a near and far for each when used with a zoom lens.  Major work (Overkill perhaps?) to address all 50 of them too.



I'll add I have the FocusTune software and LensAlign (Much like the LensCal) gizmo.  Problem is with a wide-angle lens and the extreme AF tuning points at the frame edges, the ruler scale may be so far off to one side you cannot set parts of it needed for the software to run.  The flat focus scale it needs to lock onto may also be on the wrong side of the slanted ruler at times as well.  Sort of a nightmare to use it with a lot of AF spots to select from.

What one needs is the FoCal with a really large target, but that only works with Canon and Nikon so far.  The FoCal maker is hoping to port it over to mirrorless since they added a lot more focus tuning spots for them verses the older DSLRs with a maybe only one or two to set and not 50 like Olympus did.

Is was going to ask, but you answered.

Eye of the World wrote:

No one has mentioned this, but one solution is to light the backdrop. That is assuming you are looking for it to be white and are not coloring it with gels. With proper lighting you can even turn a grey backdrop pure white, so as long as the unclean places are not overly dark then lighting it should eliminate most or all of the problem without resorting to having to blur it. Any small residual spots are then easily cloned out. That in turn allows you to use your sharpest aperture.

Actually with proper lighting you can turn a black backdrop white, and vice-versa. Takes more effort, but...

GRMACK wrote:

Ah, I see the Sony A5000 is what they call an "Entry point camera."  It probably doesn't have the ability to tune the AF system like their upper level cameras do (and maybe why it also lacks the eye focusing part as well, but that is a fairly recent innovation.).  Seems it is also left out of the A5100 too.

However, Sigma came along with their focus tuning dock and software for their ART lenses to address the non-tuneable cameras.  Some of the cheaper Nikons do not allow focus tuning either so Sigma made that possible with their dock and software that burns into the lens the corrections to its firmware.  I have their 35mm ART and used it on my old Nikon and it helped to a degree, but the newer systems can figure out the eye location as well as which eye is the closer eye and nail it better.  Sort of fun to watch the Olympus find a face or faces, mark them, and then hunt the eyes a second later and zero in on them even with their f/1.2 Pro lenses that have a very narrow DOF.

Could be your A5000 is just out of whack too with its age and needs some Sony TLC which might be pricey given its initial cost.  That, or it's time to upgrade.

Tamron now also has docks.

Black Z Eddie wrote:
I'm not sure if the a5000/a5100 have the Micro AF Adjust feature, but, for the Sony mirrorless (I have a6000,  A7RII, A7II) so long as you are using E-Mount (FF or Crop) lenses, you can't adjust it.  From what I read somewhere, It doesn't need it.  I've mix-matched FF and Crops in the past using my a6000 + Sony FF 28 f2; and A7RII + Sony Crops 35 f1.8 and 50 f1.8, never really notice it miss consistently on still subjects.

This is correct - at least as far as I know.

The purpose of AF adjustment is to correct for the miniscule and very common differences in spec on lenses and bodies. Say just a little too much pressure is used installing the mounting plate on a plastic camera body - the body flexes slightly, and now the mount is .001" lower than it's supposed to be. It might be small enough to screw up the image sensor, or the separate AF sensor of DSLRs, but not both in a consistent, self-correcting way. That's the sort of thing the AF adjustment handles really well.

Mirrorless cameras, whether they use contrast detection or on-sensor phase detection, have the AF and image sensors on the same plane. So assuming the sensor is installed level, it doesn't matter if it's slightly out of spec; whatever distance the AF system picks is always going to be the same distance the image sensor needs.

It can still be wrong of course, but it will be wrong because of crappy focusing - not because of alignment issues.

GRMACK wrote:
Appears the Sony a9 does have the AF micro-tuning adjustment.  They explain it on Page 67 of their manual here:  https://docs.sony.com/release//Manual_4692676112.pdf

Below that model, it isn't in their cameras and not even their a7RIII either.  Guess you have to pay to have it better with the a9.

No, it's not just the a9.  Pretty much from the a6000 (could be even the lower models) have it.  HOWEVER, when using E-MOUNT lenses, the amount (-20/+20) is not adjustable.  It's greyed and "--".

Sony has 2 mounts:  E-Mount (mirrorless) and A-Mount (SLT).

And, on that PDF:

"Allows you to adjust the auto-focusing position and register an adjusted
value for each lens when using A-mount lenses with an LA-EA2 or LA-EA4
Mount Adaptor (sold separately). "

Notice they say "A-Mount lenses".

Philip Brown wrote:

grmack, I appreciate your willingness to help me.
What you dont realize, is that Sony (mirrorless, anyway)  cameras simply dont have that multi-zone thing.
That is to say, at no time do you get a popup of multiple points in your LCD, and camera asks you "hey pick which point you want me to use as primary focus".

My A5000, for example, gives a focal type choice of:

* Manual
* Center
* Wide
* "Zone"  (but it tells YOU "hey these spots are in focus", and its done with software, so it doesnt matter which one gets used)
* Flexible spot  (which is autotracking, I think)

Flexible Spot lets you choose the location and size of the focus spot.