Monday, August 20, 2018

Learning to trust Focus Peaking

One of the many subjects I enjoy photographing are automobiles and motorcycles.

Twice a year here in Paris there is a large gathering of cars and bikes.  In trying to capture the overall atmosphere of the event I like to photograph the vehicles at rest and in motion.

la traversee de Paris estivale 2018


Over the years I've become somewhat dependant on autofocus when working with cars moving on the road.  I thought I'd lost the ability to accurately track a vehicle and come away with a very sharp image.

However, I've noticed that sometimes an AF lens will lock on to something that I don't want.  For instance the AF system can lock onto the foreground or background, particularly if the subject's contrast is lower than the surrounding area.  This has happened to me even when I set an AF point (such as center) to try and limit the AF to "seeing" the subject.

This mis-focus state happens surprisingly often and after some car events I have found many images that were less than sharp where I intended it to be.  It didn't matter if I used a DSLR or a mirrorless camera.

la traversee de Paris estivale 2018


Which got me to thinking about trying old manual focus lenses and learning to work with my Sony mirrorless cameras "focus peaking" function.  It would take practice and these car events happen only twice a year.  Practicing on cars driving on the street outside of these events is problematic as people here don't like their picture taken and will call the police.  I'd have to just jump in and see what I could do during la traversee de Paris itself.

Fortunately I had a glimpse of what might be possible when I photographed vintage automobiles in front of les Invalides.  As some of the cars were in motion I snapped a few images while trying to keep the "focus peaking" properly over the subject.  It was a little complicated because those old 35mm film days muscle memories of focusing on race cars had atrophied.  But I came away with enough very sharp images that I was rather happy.

la traversee de Paris estivale 2018


A month later I found myself snapping photos of quickly moving cars on la place de la Concorde.  My setup was a Sony A6000 camera, a Lens Turbo II focal reducer, and a lovely Nikon Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 K pre-Ai lens.  The focal length of the lens seemed to be about "right" for reaching out and capturing images of event participants.  Interesting cars were coming from all directions and I worked the manual focus ring like a madman trying get the right "focus peaking".

Once I got home and was able to review the outcome I realized I lost perhaps 5 of the hundreds I took due to the lack of critical sharpness!  And two slightly out of focus images I was really interested in keeping were easily sharpened up using a "smart sharpen" function during image processing.  That "hit rate" far exceeds anything I've ever experienced with AF lenses.  It didn't matter if I shot the 85mm at f/5.6 (where there is a bit of depth of field) or wide open (where I really need to "nail" the focus to keep things sharp).

la traversee de Paris estivale 2018


I'm pleasantly surprised and the outcome pleases me.  I can feel those old muscle memories about how to work manual focus lenses in quickly changing situations coming back.  It's a good feeling.

But it brings a question: Why am I _still_ wrangling over what to take to Nice during the winter?  You see, there will be a Carnival there and it will be yet another quickly changing environment.  For whatever reason I'm still a bit worried about taking my old Nikkors in place of the AF optics.  What to do?  Fortunately I have a few months to sort it all out.

la traversee de Paris estivale 2018

Friday, August 10, 2018

Historic Racecars in Black and White

In a previous post I illustrated the use of old Nikon Nikkor manual focus lenses to photograph a classic automobile show.  These older lenses tend to "round" off the top end of the curve, making highlights easier to control in processing.  It is a simple process to keep the highlights creamy and luscious.

le Mans Classic ~ 2018


Modern lenses tend to be a bit more "contrasty" in the highlights.  As such when using modern autofocus optics I've found I need to gently modify the highlight areas by using a "rounded" curve toward the top end.

After the teuf-teuf show I visited le Mans for the 24 heures Classic event.  This was the second time that I've been (the first visit being in 2016).  Not wanting to miss a shot by rushing to manually focus (I wasn't yet fully comfortable in trusting my manual focus abilities) I took three cameras mounted with three different autofocus lenses.

The first camera was a Sony NEX-5T with a Sigma 30mm f/2.8 EX DN.  The second was a Sony A5000 with a Sigma 19mm f/2.8 EX DN.  It was this camera that I put on the end of a monopod and remote triggered using a cell phone.  This was a wonderful solution for getting into those "hard to reach" places.  The third camera was a Sony A6000 and a Sony 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 SEL OSS.  This is the setup I would use to "reach" out and "compress" the distance between me and a subject.

le Mans Classic ~ 2018


Le Mans has been hot and dry in the two years I've been there.  A hat (the one I used to wear to combat the sun in India), a sack lunch, and bottled water are basic requirements.  I selected Friday as the best day to be there.  The crowds on Saturday and Sunday can be massive.  To avoid as many people as I could I took a 07h30 TGV out of Montparnasse.  Le Mans is only an hour away and I was able to get to one of the entry gates just as they opened at 09h00.

Hot footing it over to the paddock meant I had to avoid strong temptation to take photographs of private cars as they arrived.  There are areas set up all around the infield for car clubs.  These clubs come from all over Europe and some very interesting automobiles are on display.  They would have to wait until I was done working the paddock and racetrack.

le Mans Classic ~ 2018


I can get pretty excited seeing old racecars.  Ferraris, Jaguars, Alfa Romeos, early Bentleys and the oh-so-French Bugattis.  These and many many more marques and makes of racecar are on display as they prepare for a weekend of racing.  The atmosphere is even better than anything I read as a young boy in Road and Track magazine.

There is simply too much happening all at the same time to take it all in.  I did my best to concentrate on cars I was most interested in.  From time to time I would stop and talk to car owners and drivers to learn more about them and their vehicles.  The histories are so deep and rich.

It's difficult to do the subject justice in just one seven hour day, but I did the best I could.  Of course I am looking forward to the next 24 heures Classic in two years.

le Mans Classic ~ 2018

[Note: Here is an album of images from the 2018 Le Mans Classic - including both black and white as well as color works]

Sunday, August 05, 2018

Vintage Automobiles in Black and White

The French are seemingly just as Car Crazy as the English and Americans.  We have so many motor related events that it's hard to keep up with them all and impossible to visit each and every event.  I try to select the events I'm most interested in.

Paris-Rambouillet ~ 2018

This year a couple local clubs hosted a Paris to Rambouillet event.  It was for very early automobiles and they would set out from les Invalides.  The cars massed on a Saturday afternoon and set out around sunrise Sunday morning.

I was curious to see what might show up.  There are so many early marques that I know nothing about, and I thought it would be fun to explore and discover a bit.  Of course I wanted to make a few images.

For obvious reasons the image style that appealed to me most was black and white.  To answer questions about image quality and focus-peaking focus accuracy I wanted to take two lenses.  The first was a Nikon Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 Ai that tested a little poorly way out in the corners.  The second lens was a Nikon Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 K that tested ever so slightly "soft" wide open.

Paris-Rambouillet ~ 2018

My wife and I headed over the see the cars as they arrived and the public display the clubs put on in front of les Invalides.

As you no doubt know, I really enjoy using Sony APS-C mirrorless cameras.  But one of the things I've been too "chicken" to test in a "live photoshoot" was focus peaking accuracy on moving subjects.  With plenty of time I can magnify the scene and carefully focus on the part of the subject I want in maximum focus.  But with moving objects I wondered how far my "hit rate" might fall when using non-AF lenses.

Taking a deep breath and risking being disappointed by the lack of sharp images I dove in to see how things might come out.

Paris-Rambouillet ~ 2018

Looking at the images from the Nikon Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 Ai the first thing I considered wasn't the edge performance.  It was the composition and lighting of the subject.  Only when I forced myself to look across the image did I think about the edges.  They seem just fine.

To test the focus-peaking accuracy in situations with no time to magnify a section of the scene I shot the Nikon Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 K wide open.  Over the past few months in working with test subjects I observed where the sharpest images are achieved relative to the focus-peaking line widths.  So I had a little confidence that things might come out OK, but until everything was in motion and in play I couldn't be certain I had the best/correct technique.

It turns out that using a Sony A6000 with focus-peaking through the EVF I was able to get a very high focusing accuracy "hit rate."  Frankly, I was more than a little surprised.  And the images were sharp, too, even wide open.  This was important to me because AF lenses on the same camera would sometimes choose an AF point behind the intended subject.  Now, it appears, I can control the focus point with surprising accuracy and better consistency.

Paris-Rambouillet ~ 2018

While I might not declare a Year of Manual Focus Lenses Only (there are still situations where I feel I have to trust AF), unofficially more and more of my work is and will be made using old Nikon lenses.