Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]What is the best way to solve the following: you are shooting close-up, say at two feet, at F/2 or wider. The closer eye of your subject is off-center. There is nothing dead-center on which to focus. So you focus on the eye and then swing the camera back to frame. Now, obviously, the plane that passes at a right angle through the eye intersects the lens axis at a distance closer to the film plane than the distance from the film plane to the eye. The farther the eye is towards the edge of the film the greater this becomes. With a reflex you can avoid this problem by focusing on the groundglass. At wide f-stops the depth of field is very small at close distances. What is the best way to handle this? A lens with a curved field might do better in this regard than one with a flat field. So as the lenses get better, this effect has become greater. My own solution is, if it is possible, to try to set up something (like the subject's hand) where I think the center would be. But with quick action and more candid shots that simply is not possible. Or, you could focus a bit closer than indicated, but that seems like guessing. What do you do? I have never seen this issue discussed. Jesse