ZONE FOCUSING

Focusing your lens at a predetermined distance is a highly successful technique, but it does require a good knowledge of how to read and use the information that lens markings provide. Here experienced street photographer Derek Clark (derekclarkphotography.com) explains the process behind confidently capturing pin-sharp images.

1 GET IN THE ZONE Do you ever wonder why some photographers can shoot from the hip and get everything tack sharp, while your pictures tend to come out like this one? The answer is zone focusing, which is another way of saying you pre-focus the camera.

2 LENS CHOICE Wide-angle lenses work best. 35mm will do, but I find a 28mm (fullframe equivalent) is the sweet spot. A 21mm would get more DOF, but you would need to get uncomfortably close to your subject to have them large enough in the frame.

3 CAMERA SETTINGS Set your camera to manual focus mode. Aperture should be between f8 and f16. Shutter speed is not important, but I get as close to 1/500sec as possible. Our variable is ISO; I set my ISO to Auto (upper limit of 3200 or 6400).

4 DEPTH-OF-FIELD SCALES Hasselblad film cameras like my 500c/m have a really cool DOF scale. As the aperture is closed down, two red markers move away from each other. For example, at f16 and focused to 6’, everything from 5’ to 8’ will be sharp.

5 DIGITAL CAMERA DOF SCALE As you can see from the blue bar in this image, everything between 5’ and 9’ will be in focus. That blue bar will get shorter if the aperture is opened up, or the focus distance is reduced.

6 AIM AND SHOOT Now just point and shoot. This is easy if you are looking through the viewfinder, but it might take some practice when shooting from the hip. I find a 28mm lens is fine pointed straight ahead, but a 35mm needs to be tilted up slightly.