skateboardin & manual focus

V

viola

New member
if i shoot skateboarding and im going on side on my own board, which way is the best way to keep skater in focus all the time? distances varies between 1meter and 5meters and i dont have any time to adjust focus on the run..
what manual focus number should i use to distances 1-5meters? also, should i always use f16 to keep everything in focus ?
any other advices, ideas how to get best focus?
 
viola said:
if i shoot skateboarding and im going on side on my own board, which way is the best way to keep skater in focus all the time? distances varies between 1meter and 5meters and i dont have any time to adjust focus on the run..
what manual focus number should i use to distances 1-5meters? also, should i always use f16 to keep everything in focus ?
any other advices, ideas how to get best focus?
Click to expand...


What focal length are you at? Also, read up on using hyperfocal distance.
Here's a start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance

There are tables that will give you the distances for a given stop.

I would think that focusing at 2.5 meters at anything at F11 or beyond
should so it and also maybe try a faster shutter speed which will capture
your main subject more crisply and blur the background proportionately,
giving the feel at least of sharper focus and speed. Of course if
you're at 1/60th shutter and you go to 1/120th you'll have to open up a
stop
but experiement. See what you get with F8 at 1/500. Good luck.

I use a specially bulit board so that an asisstant can ride along and do
follow focus but of course I do only big budget productions.
 
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If you are shooting wide angle it should be pretty easy to stay in focus. I'm guessing you want to error on focusing on stuff closser to the lens. It looks pretty cool when action passes close to the lens. I'd aim for about F8 or F11, lenses actually loose resolution when stopped all the way down. Try setting your focus at about 1 meter and then hit the focus assist button so you can see whats really in focus (probably just about everything. Then move the focus ring to see at what focus the foreground and background goes in or out of focus (is your foot in focus 6 inches from the lens??). Once you see what your camera does you'll have the knowledge to feel confident making adjustments for each situation.

If you zoom in, the range of what's in focus will decrease rapidly. Which is great, but requires a different approach.
 
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