Focusing in v low light (or candle-lit) situations.

analoguey · Oct 4, 2014

I was at an event yesterday where the power dropped abruptly, which meant little light - and that just wasnt useful for manual focusing.
My auto-focus Nikon-nikkors were spot on because of the af-beam.

Given that af-beams are what - a 90s invention(?) - I wonder what people did earlier to that?

Or what is suggested with a manual camera/lens? (RF system? Leicas?) the lens I couldn't focus with was a nikkor 135-2.8 AIS.

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summicron1 · Oct 4, 2014

dim light is where leica rangefinders, but also any rangefinder with a good optical makeup, comes into its own. If you can see any edge, of anything, you can focus on it.

people with SLRs, or glass back focus cameras, just got very good by being very careful.

analoguey · Oct 4, 2014

By dim light would you mean say a room full of people with a couple of candles /small torches? Or something more akin to shadowy streetlight?

I'm assuming you mean something like the Leica Ms and not the earlier ones -or do you mean both?

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pentaxuser · Oct 4, 2014

If the subject(s) was/were relatively close and needed a large aperture because of poor light so little DoF then I suspect that some photographers just got very good at estimating distance and setting the lens to that distance.

pentaxuser

snapguy · Oct 4, 2014

big time

I knew a big city newspaper chief photographer who used to make sure his photogs could focus by just looking at the scene. If a newbie came into his office with a Speed Graphic with a Kalart rangefinder attached, he would bust the rangefinder so the new kid had to learn how to guess focus. I thought it was dumb. In the old, old days, taking a photo was an event. No quick snap and away you go. A pro might well put the camera on a tripod and get out his yardstick and measure the distance. Or guess the distance. You can get good at anything if you do it enough times. A lot of old tyme photogs never carried a light meter, either. They knew what the needed exposure was. And cleaned their lens with the tip of their tie. They wore suits and ties in those days.

RalphLambrecht · Oct 4, 2014

analoguey said:
I was at an event yesterday where the power dropped abruptly, which meant little light - and that just wasnt useful for manual focusing.
My auto-focus Nikon-nikkors were spot on because of the af-beam.

Given that af-beams are what - a 90s invention(?) - I wonder what people did earlier to that?

Or what is suggested with a manual camera/lens? (RF system? Leicas?) the lens I couldn't focus with was a nikkor 135-2.8 AIS.

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I carry two small mag flash lights (AAA)in my camera bag for this just in case.after you take thr frontpiece of them off,I stand them up like a candleand mark the desired DOF with hem.This wat, they become easy to focus onand I can simply determine the aperture reuired for my desired DOF.the subject focuswll be someewhere in between the two. I oftn leave hem in the picture to check focus accuracy.It's a little trick I learned from my Dad.

analoguey · Oct 4, 2014

snapguy said:
I knew a big city newspaper chief photographer who used to make sure his photogs could focus by just looking at the scene. If a newbie came into his office with a Speed Graphic with a Kalart rangefinder attached, he would bust the rangefinder so the new kid had to learn how to guess focus. I thought it was dumb. In the old, old days, taking a photo was an event. No quick snap and away you go. A pro might well put the camera on a tripod and get out his yardstick and measure the distance. Or guess the distance. You can get good at anything if you do it enough times. A lot of old tyme photogs never carried a light meter, either. They knew what the needed exposure was. And cleaned their lens with the tip of their tie. They wore suits and ties in those days.

Oh head-desk!
I should have thought of range-focusing. Damn! I was doing that all week in the daytime, damn. (Although with the 135, it is 2 full turns from infinity to nearest distance...

RalphLambrecht said:
I carry two small mag flash lights (AAA)in my camera bag for this just in case.after you take thr frontpiece of them off,I stand them up like a candleand mark the desired DOF with hem.This wat, they become easy to focus onand I can simply determine the aperture reuired for my desired DOF.the subject focuswll be someewhere in between the two. I oftn leave hem in the picture to check focus accuracy.It's a little trick I learned from my Dad.

That is an idea. Bounce the torch off the wall - you mean, right?
And something like f8 and shoot?

Bill Burk · Oct 4, 2014

My best available light photographs were taken by candle-light. The candle is pretty easy to focus on.

bvy · Oct 4, 2014

snapguy said:
I knew a big city newspaper chief photographer who used to make sure his photogs could focus by just looking at the scene. If a newbie came into his office with a Speed Graphic with a Kalart rangefinder attached, he would bust the rangefinder so the new kid had to learn how to guess focus. I thought it was dumb. In the old, old days, taking a photo was an event. No quick snap and away you go. A pro might well put the camera on a tripod and get out his yardstick and measure the distance. Or guess the distance. You can get good at anything if you do it enough times. A lot of old tyme photogs never carried a light meter, either. They knew what the needed exposure was. And cleaned their lens with the tip of their tie. They wore suits and ties in those days.

Great anecdote.

markbarendt · Oct 4, 2014

analoguey said:
I wonder what people did earlier to that?

Lots more out-of-focus shots.

Mr Bill · Oct 5, 2014

analoguey said:
I was at an event yesterday where the power dropped abruptly, which meant little light - and that just wasnt useful for manual focusing.

...
Given that af-beams are what - a 90s invention(?) - I wonder what people did earlier to that?

I started photography pretty young, learning from my father who was an amateur with a makeshift darkroom. In the late 1950's, I learned how to use flashbulbs, which was about the only way to shoot "events" in near-darkness.

Something not mentioned yet is that proper flash exposure requires you to predetermine the distance. You divide the flash guide number by distance to get the f-number, and since the desired distance is now established, you can preset the focus to that distance.

All you have to do now is to get yourself to the proper distance, which you would generally estimate. As a couple of people mentioned, you can get fairly good with practice. Also, use of flashbulbs means the lens is stopped down a good amount, so whatever distance error you have is probably covered by depth of field.

If there is enough light, and if you are so inclined, you can improve the focus; a rangefinder is better when right at the threshold of enough light. Another trick is to find something bright at about the same distance as the subject, and use that to focus on. Or, if the bright object is a bit closer, focus on it and then step a similar distance closer to the subject.

I started shooting weddings in the late 1960's, using a Rolleiflex with manual electronic flash. I learned a few methods (tricks) such that it was no problem to go on a dim dance floor - so dim it would be difficult to even see through the viewfinder of a modern (D)SLR - and get well-exposed shots sharp enough for a large album page.

ic-racer · Oct 5, 2014

If it is to dim to focus, then your not going to be doing film photogaphy unless you have a flashbulb. In that case, Kalt had a focus mechanism using a light. For small format film, zone focus at a reasonable aperture was usually was fine because flashbulbs can be bright.

analoguey · Oct 5, 2014

Just to clarify - not asking about 'shooting in low-light' as much as 'focusing in low-light'.
I do and was using pair of speedlights - key + fill (so my exposures were more towards f8)

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analoguey · Oct 5, 2014

Mr Bill said:
I started photography pretty young, learning from my father who was an amateur with a makeshift darkroom. In the late 1950's, I learned how to use flashbulbs, which was about the only way to shoot "events" in near-darkness.

Something not mentioned yet is that proper flash exposure requires you to predetermine the distance. You divide the flash guide number by distance to get the f-number, and since the desired distance is now established, you can preset the focus to that distance.

All you have to do now is to get yourself to the proper distance, which you would generally estimate. As a couple of people mentioned, you can get fairly good with practice. Also, use of flashbulbs means the lens is stopped down a good amount, so whatever distance error you have is probably covered by depth of field.

If there is enough light, and if you are so inclined, you can improve the focus; a rangefinder is better when right at the threshold of enough light. Another trick is to find something bright at about the same distance as the subject, and use that to focus on. Or, if the bright object is a bit closer, focus on it and then step a similar distance closer to the subject.

I started shooting weddings in the late 1960's, using a Rolleiflex with manual electronic flash. I learned a few methods (tricks) such that it was no problem to go on a dim dance floor - so dim it would be difficult to even see through the viewfinder of a modern (D)SLR - and get well-exposed shots sharp enough for a large album page.

Thank you - I think you summed up my situation better than I had!
And those are some quite useful tips!

If you got onto the dance floor would you be bouncing the flash usually(and go with the range-focus you mentioned above)?

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John Koehrer · Oct 5, 2014

analoguey said:
That is an idea. Bounce the torch off the wall - you mean, right?
And something like f8 and shoot?

No. When you remove the front of a Maglite, it just takes the reflector off and totally exposes the bulb.

pentaxuser · Oct 5, 2014

I'll bet the old pressmen after taking hundreds of pictures between a fairly narrow range of distances were able to estimate distance to within a few inches. Maybe they held distance rating exercises to hone their skill. That's how industrial engineers( time and motion study men) perfected their speed rating of assembly-line operators so that they could all adjust for the correct normal time even when an operator's motion speed varied across the different parts of the whole assembly.

Stand for several hours by the side of the road and estimate vehicle speeds and after estimating, have the correct radar gun speed given to you. I'll bet that after several hours you will be accurate to within a few miles per hour

pentaxuser

Focusing in v low light (or candle-lit) situations.

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