AF point in DPP?

So am I correct in my thinking that when viewing the AF point in DPP, it simply shows which sensor(s) have been used in the shot, but there is no way to determine from this exactly WHERE in the frame that/those points were active on the image itself?

thx

Old Baldy wrote in post #11919444
So am I correct in my thinking that when viewing the AF point in DPP, it simply shows which sensor(s) have been used in the shot, but there is no way to determine from this exactly WHERE in the frame that/those points were active on the image itself?

thx

Not unless the camera wasn't moved between focus and exposure.

tzalman wrote in post #11919633
Not unless the camera wasn't moved between focus and exposure.

OK, so it doesn't show the point of focus. It would be so much more useful if it did, IMO. Simply knowing which focus sensors were active seems completely meaningless to me, if you've recomposed the shot after focusing (as I do often, and I'm sure many of us do)

Surely if your recomposing after setting the focus then it not focusing on anything at all in the new image.

When you focus your just telling camera how far the subject it from the sensor, if you move the camera then whatever is at that same exact distance will be the thing in focus.

whiteflyer wrote in post #11920039
Surely if your recomposing after setting the focus then it not focusing on anything at all in the new image.

When you focus your just telling camera how far the subject it from the sensor, if you move the camera then whatever is at that same exact distance will be the thing in focus.

No, I'm forcing the focus to remain where it was (shutter button with "one-shot" AF)....so the focus is "locked" at the point before I recomposed.

For example... a picture of 2 people standing next to each other, I focus on the primary person's eye, hold the shutter button half-way down to lock the focus, then recompose the pic to get both faces centered in the pic, and fire the shot. DPP then places the active AF sensor (let's say it was the center point), right in the middle of the recomposed point - which may be on the back wall between the 2 people.....nowhere near where I actually focused.

When you focus on the persons eye it will measure that distance from subject to camera ( lets just say 10 feet 3 inches)

Now your "locking" that distance. When you recompose the camera is not focusing on the back wall, it keeps the focus at a distance of 10 feet 3 inches and anything at that distance will be in focus, no matter where in the frame that thing is, if it's 10 feet 3 inches in front of the sensor then it will be in focus

Think of it as DPP is saying this is the focus point you used to measure the distance, not as this is the point the camera focused on.

I understand that, Mark....and that's my point. DPP does not show you WHERE the focus point is...it only shows you which sensor(s) were active. The position of the sensors on the image are meaningless.

So...when I have a blurred pic, I wanted to know WHERE exactly the camera had focused, but there is no way of knowing that from looking at the pic with the "view AF point" option in DPP.

It would have been much more useful if the metadata contains the AF points and DPP actually shows where those points are, for me.

Maybe this is simply impossible, but I find the current view option is totally worthless for me, as it doesn't matter which AF sensors were active when they are not necessarily showing where in the image they were when the focus was obtained.

How would DPP possibly know what you focused on in the picture? Even if it did show you, that doesn't mean the distance is still the same as when you focused.

itzcryptic wrote in post #11920514
How would DPP possibly know what you focused on in the picture? .

No idea. I'm no imaging software expert.

I guess the REAL question is.....what is the use of the "View AF point" in DPP? It doesn't necessarily indicate the point of AF....so what is the display really useful for?

It's very useful if you select your AF point and don't re-compose.

Perhaps there's some causality between re-composing and the 'blurry' pics you need to diagnose?

SOK wrote in post #11921198
Perhaps there's some causality between re-composing and the 'blurry' pics you need to diagnose?

Possibly, maybe I need to try different approaches to this type of composition.
I thought that recomposing after focus selection for this type of pic was pretty much a standard practice and a recommended process, to avoid (or minimize) an incorrect focus. I'm not sure what other options I have here, unless it's simply to step back or zoom out to get the wider FOV without recomposing the shot (assuming I've already selected the nearest focus sensor point to what I want in focus in the scene)...and then crop to the desired composition.

Is this a better method, in general, than shifting the camera with focus locked, for a pic of 2 folks standing next to each other?

There's a great example of when it can be useful in the sacrilegious nikon thread

Chippy569 wrote in post #11921411
There's a great example of when it can be useful in the sacrilegious nikon thread

That's very cool, except that DPP does not show the actual focus points location on the image, as discussed above.

Getting 2 people in acceptable focus can be tricky, particularly when you're filling the frame with them as it means you're either phyically close or using a longer focal length (both of which decreases depth of field).

My normal approach is to (try to) shoot somewhere between F/4 and F/5.6 and keep their heads on the same plane of focus (easy for duos, trios gets problematic if someone is trying to stand behind the other two!). I'll select an AF point and align it with the eyes of one of the subjects...which generally keeps the other sets of eyes within the DOF.

Sharp eyes - or lack thereof - will make or break a 'people' shot so that's always my focus (pun very much intended).

Focus-recompose has its place, but I find it unacceptable for close up people shots.

Take two pictures, one with the initial focus, and then the recomposed one.
But, if the DOF is small, recomposing will put the focus plane in the wrong place.
Focusing on a point that doesn't exist is a problem I've not found a good solution to!