[Studor13]

I re-read Fred Miranda's recent post complaining about the LV on the D800. He says something like:



"To achieve critical focus I looked for nuances as I slowly turned the focusing ring on the lens. Surprisingly, in the field under this variable lighting, the image seemed to be interpolated as I used higher magnification. It was a mess. I had never experienced this before and wasted so much time playing around with the live view, that I missed the light. I still took a few shots even though I knew they weren't usable just so I would have something to look at. When reviewing these images on the LCD, I noticed they had a green cast and a low contrast look to them. Needless to say, this did nothing for my self-esteem in the field. My solution - Delete."



What is this critical focus non-sense?



Here are some shots I did today on the D800 (and 16-35mm f/4 @16mm and f8) where I simply focused at infinity on the church.





.



.



.





For landscapes on the D800 or any other camera why not just set the focus to infinity, set the lens to f8, shoot and then go home?



I really believe that too many people try to complicate things when there is nothing to complicate.



So, please stop believing things on the internet (except mine of course) and go and find out for yourself!



As a side note, there is a lot of talk about what how only the best lenses are going to perform well on the D800. I can only say that (sharpness wise) the 75-150mm Series E is up there with the 24-70mm at 70mm and the 70-200mm VR II at 135mm. (I didn't test at other focal lengths)



Some other side notes:

- the 24mm f2.8 AIS isn't up to it

- the 20mm f3.5 Voigtlander is not bad but not as good as the 16-35 at 20mm

- the 24-70 creams the the 16-35 at 35mm but not so at 24mm

- the 180mm f/2.8 AFD is a gem

- the 70-200mm VR II is sort of weird at 200mm; sharp enough but not as good as the 180mm



- the 18-35mm (I admit) isn't up to it from 18-24 but is more than good beyond that



Unfortunately the D800 was not mine (mine is on order) so I can't "borrow" it again until next week.

[popo]

While "f/8 and be there" works in many situations, sometimes you don't want to make do. Even at f/8 on 8mm fisheye I can see the difference between infinity focus and some other distance focus if that has the more important subject matter. There's good enough, and there's critical.



Without 1st hand experience I'm only guessing of course, I'm sure the D800 is a great camera regardless and I'd love to have its sensor, but the live view quirk remains a negative all the same.

[Sylvain]

With all due respect, why can't you accept that some will strive for the absolute best parameters for a photograph.

Just playing around with a dof calculator that takes CoC into account (viewing distance & print size, something that the kind of guys like fred miranda probably do), setting a 20/20 eyesight, and you see that your settings will put the closest acceptable sharpness within the 2 meters range fairly easily. If you do a close to the ground picture, it's basically not working so well anymore. Specific case I agree but to each his own.



It's not lies we're dealing with here, it's different expectations than you and it's perfectly fine <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.

[Studor13]

The classic landscape shot consists of foreground, midground and background.



As we all know there is only one plane of focus.



I have tried every possible variation - hyperfocal, 1/3 into the frame, 1/2 way in, 1/2 way out and everything else in between. The best method is to either focus on the furthest point of interest (which is usually infinity) or just focus at infinity. F8 will work but f13 is a certainty.



This is not just good enough, this is the best.



This notion that there is some magical critical focus point has been brainwashed into some by the likes of Fred M. And the idea that we should strive to find it in the dark using LV is beyond ridiculous.



Let me put it in another way. Show me a photo with this magical focus point. And then show me a comparison of same shot where the focus point was simple at infinity. And then print it.



Only then you will see for yourself.

[Guest]

Post your question here:



http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/board/55



and you will get many examples.

[frank]

Even if you intend to focus at the distant church, you also need some judge of focus I think. Simply put the focus ring at the infinite distance usually does not make the infinite subject in focus (probbaly caused by the inaccurate distance scale on the lens?). For the AF lens you can focus at the church by AF. While for a MF lens, probbaly you still need to judge the foucus with your eyes.



Personally I rarely use the LV since it makes battery consumed quickly. However, I still think a good and reliable LV is a critical part for a modern DSLR.



Frank

[PuxaVida]

When I go to landscapes, I take pictures like you've posted above. And sometimes I also come up with such cases that I mount a longer FL lens (with MF):







This one was taken with the D700 & 135mm CZJ. Why I used that lens is off topic. But definitely I can say that I could not set the focus like above if I would use infinity focus and f/8-13 <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />... If I remember correctly, it was 4-5 meters away from the camera... And ironically, since it's a native M42 mount lens used with adapter, there's no infinity focus <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />... Thanks to magnified LiveView, one can apply MF more precisely when needed. If you only use WA lenses with AF motor and apply the infinity focus rule (which was introduced to popular photography many years ago, by the way), you have to be happy with the gear you own (or will own). But that doesn't change the fact that, magnified LiveView in such a camera should satisfy the needs.



Serkan

[Studor13]

Sekan, I am not talking about images like yours. I am only addressing classic landscapes where there is a foreground, midground and background. Like the type that Fred what's his name was trying to find focus on in the middle of the night.



I really don't care what people use. But I will go into a huff when people start to believe, and more importantly, try to make others believe that using LV in complete darkness to find some non-existing magical focus point is a mark of a great photographer.



As I said in another thread you can put a 10 stop ND filter on a camera like the D800 and the focus system will still work. So even if you are using only a manual focus lens - in near complete darkness - the green light will still come on. Not only that, the D800 has the left and right arrows (like say the F100) which helps you fine tune the focusing to lock in the green button.



"one can apply MF more precisely when needed"

Absolutely. But it is not needed for the types of shots that Fred is talking about.



And BTW, it was Harold Merklinger who introduced it to popular photography.

[Guest]

[quote name='Studor13' timestamp='1335466333' post='17795']

The classic landscape shot consists of foreground, midground and background.



As we all know there is only one plane of focus.



I have tried every possible variation - hyperfocal, 1/3 into the frame, 1/2 way in, 1/2 way out and everything else in between. The best method is to either focus on the furthest point of interest (which is usually infinity) or just focus at infinity. F8 will work but f13 is a certainty.



This is not just good enough, this is the best.



This notion that there is some magical critical focus point has been brainwashed into some by the likes of Fred M. And the idea that we should strive to find it in the dark using LV is beyond ridiculous.



Let me put it in another way. Show me a photo with this magical focus point. And then show me a comparison of same shot where the focus point was simple at infinity. And then print it.



Only then you will see for yourself.

[/quote]





I have to say my natural inclination is towards 'infinity at f/8 and shoot'. However I can understand the approach that requires use of LV etc - even if because a 36MP sensor on '35mm' is a new beast to get used-to. For sure, to get the best results a smaller circle of confusion needs to be plugged-in than for, say, a 12MP sensor if DoF calcs are made.



I'm convinced that often people use LV 'because they can', not because it is essential. After all, lenses used for landscape on 35mm format (of all kinds) are pretty short, compared to those used on, say, 10x8 inch - with the original 'LV'. So DoF is commensurately large. My 2 D200 bodies don't have LV even - but I don't write this for sour grapes reasons.



Suggestion for Studor 13 - take time to focus by both methods, in a controlled test. The results will give the answer, at least for that aperture, using your equipment and technique.



Prediction? No difference.

[Guest]

Studor13: You obviously do not have a lot of experience with landscape photography.



Put a 10 stop filter on D800 and focus system will still work? Ha, ha... that depends on your light levels. If you are a landscape photographer working under pre-dawn and post-dusk light conditions, even a 3 stop filer is enough to turn your entire viewfinder black. Try it yourself.



Here is one shot taken with f/13 on an APS-C camera:





In this shot, at f/13, I can only get some of the foreground flowers in focus even with careful selection of focal points. The mountains at infinity are out of focus. Eventually, I used live view to capture several shots with different focal points and kept the one I liked best. Compromises had to be made.



PS: APS-C cameras have deeper DOF than FF. Also, I did not venture beyond f/13 because I did not want to deal with diffraction effects recorded by the APS-C sensor.



PS2: I do not know why you find it hard to accept the fact the D800 has poor live-view implementation. There's a simple workaround for RAW users: turn up the default image sharpness to max. Works well enough for live view manual focusing without affecting final RAW output.