Why do lenses focus past infinity?

Its purely for Chuck Norris.

gjl711 wrote in post #13606448
I checked the two FD mount manual focus lenses I have and it's the same. The lens stops exactly at infinity and when checked on the camera, things at infinity are in perfect focus.

This depends on having an adapter that is exactly to spec.

After Canon realized that over half of high volume TV watchers believe in ghosts, they decided to market lenses as being capable of capturing them. Since they are not living on our plane of existence, according to reputable sources such as The Star, marketing decided that a focus point past infinity was the way to go.

But, as I recall, it is there because of the way AF works to confirm infinity.

krb wrote in post #13606564
This depends on having an adapter that is exactly to spec.

I tried them on my A1 so no adapter is needed.

rick_reno wrote in post #13604652
Obviously you're not a fan of Buzz Lightyear, who taught us all that indeed there is something beyond infinity. "To infinity ... and beyond!" It's called "beyond"

haha I was thinking of Buzz Lightyear when I saw the thread title

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So Infinity and Beyond are not two places.....Here's me thinking that Infinity and Beyond were either just two towns or two bars where he went sometimes

Not too far from here there are two places called Nowhere else and Paradise.

RAW RAW RAW wrote in post #13607451
So Infinity and Beyond are not two places.....Here's me thinking that Infinity and Beyond were either just two towns or two bars where he went sometimes

Not too far from here there are two places called Nowhere else and Paradise.

Well to me where you live is kind of like Infinity and Beyond
and the entire region is like Nowhere else and Paradise

I'm guessing that you are in the US......that is a long way away and VERY isolated way over there on the wrong side of the Pacific Ocean. I don't know how you live with the isolation.

More like north of the US, the cold and boring Saskatchewan Canada. It's just as isolated here as the US and the people here are just as ignorant with absolutely no knowledge about foreign countries Since I moved here from Sweden, Europe I constantly run into people who would mix up Sweden with Switzerland and probably don't know that Austria and Australia are located on two different continents. The poor people waste their money at the local casino while the rich go to Vegas and very few would even consider to go to Europe or Asia because to them watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians is more exciting than visiting Italy or Singapore. I live with the isolation by working 6-7 days a week and save money to buy L lenses and hoping one day I will have enough money to move away from this awfully ignorant continent

It's a nice feature for macro work (with tubes) when focus stacking.

I've noticed that in some situations I end up focused past the infinity mark, but I guess that's just sloppy markings on today's AF lenses.

i keep reading about focus stacking, what is it exactly?

StructuredAmazing wrote in post #13608281
i keep reading about focus stacking, what is it exactly?

Focus Stacking

StructuredAmazing wrote in post #13608281
i keep reading about focus stacking, what is it exactly?

It is simply the taking of multiple pictures with the focal plane in different spots then merged with only the in-focus areas used. This greatly increases the DOF. There are programs out there that perform the function more or less auto-magically such as photoshop and my favorite CombineZP. Macro photography is probably where it is used most though it will work for anything. This is what it produces. Note that the spider is on focus from leg tip to leg tip. Impossible to do with a single shot.

Nice pet.

gjl711 wrote in post #13609045
It is simply the taking of multiple pictures with the focal plane in different spots then merged with only the in-focus areas used. This greatly increases the DOF. There are programs out there that perform the function more or less auto-magically such as photoshop and my favorite CombineZP. Macro photography is probably where it is used most though it will work for anything. This is what it produces. Note that the spider is on focus from leg tip to leg tip. Impossible to do with a single shot.

That shot is awesome! I love how you can see the surface tension holding up the spider while it bends under the weight.