Do you ever adjust your lens focus to be farther back on purpose?

I have a Canon 50D. I have been working today and tonight on setting my Auto Focus Micro Adjustment. Even if you know what your micro adjustment is for a specific lens, do you ever move the number toward the back, maybe while thinking what your depth of field is going to be, to get your entire subject in focus? For example, if I am taking a picture of a person or car or motorcycle coming at me, and I focus on some front part of the subject, then half of the depth of field is in front of the subject, and not being used. Or do you feel the adjustment numbers are too large a gap and afraid or have experienced pushing the plane of focus too far back so that the front of a subject is now out of focus. You have permission to tell me I am over thinking this.

Timza wrote in post #17988887
Even if you know what your micro adjustment is for a specific lens, do you ever move the number toward the back,...

I wouldn't do that. Instead, why don't you choose a focus point, other than the center one, to cover the part of the subject that you want to use? How to do it is under "Custom Functions" under "AF Point Selection Methods" in your user manual.

Personally, I like the front sharp & the rear not for motion images. GT-40 on Woodward

I am not really trying to solve a known problem. I am curious. And using one of the other focus points does not really affect the situation. Those are just other focus points.

I do this for all of my lenses - I slightly shift the range backwards.
I did this once I started doing very artsy thin DoF shots with lenses such as the 85L 1.2

You do have to be very careful because in different wavelengths of light, the DoF will move around so don't tune your lenses indoors under 3000k light and then go shoot outside in the bright shade at 7000k light and expect your tiny DoF shooting @ F1.4 to be where it is suppose to be.

Timza wrote in post #17989065
... And using one of the other focus points does not really affect the situation. Those are just other focus points.

I'm wondering if the "situation" you referenced is the question you posed or the solution I suggested?

Sounds like a new feature similar to exposure compensation. I prefer to have the lens focus as closely as possible on the target but I can se where at times you would want it to focus either closer of further. Would be nice if for those times you could dial in a focus compensation value for just that shot instead of using MFA to miss focus for all shots.

gjl711 wrote in post #17989243
Sounds like a new feature similar to exposure compensation. I prefer to have the lens focus as closely as possible on the target but I can se where at times you would want it to focus either closer of further. Would be nice if for those times you could dial in a focus compensation value for just that shot instead of using MFA to miss focus for all shots.

I shoot both Canon and Sony. With the Sony A7Rii, just quickly jumping to MF, and using 12x zoom, while your eye is still looking through the viewfinder, makes moving around the DoF so easy to do - it is one of the major advantages of mirrorless over DSLRs.

Yes. I do it quite often. Of course you can't do it for a one-time shot, but if you are taking shots of the same subject and you know the AF is tending to focus of a particular part, but you want to shift the actual focus point a bit. I only use adjustments of <+/- 10 and 90% of the time it will be +/- 5 or so.

Sometimes, I want the sharpest plane to be exactly where the focus point is, but other times, like shooting kids soccer with 50d, I move it back 1 or 2 so that I can use middle point and just aim for the jersey. Not perfect, but for the way I shoot, I get a few more head in focus shots. I have thought about but have not seen that I need to do this with the 1d3, but I tend to use the noncenter points much more.

Yes. If you are taking a picture of a car and focus on the front grille but want the windshield in focus. Or taking a picture of an elephant head but want the ears in focus. Or taking a picture of two kids working a soccer ball so you focus on the nearer kid but want the other in focus also. Your lens focus plane needs to move behind camera body focus distance. I see landscape photographers discuss how to get the foreground and background both in focus. And see portrait photographers talk about creating a narrow depth of field. But have never seen this discussed. When I was setting my micro focus adjustment, I suddenly thought... wait a minute... look at all that depth of field I am giving away.

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Timza wrote in post #17993488
Yes. If you are taking a picture of a car and focus on the front grille but want the windshield in focus.

If you want the windshield in focus, then why not focus on the windshield?
(or on one of the pillars, which is the same distance from the camera as the windshield)

Timza wrote in post #17993488
Or taking a picture of an elephant head but want the ears in focus.

If you want the ears in focus, then why not focus on the ears?

Timza wrote in post #17993488
Or taking a picture of two kids working a soccer ball so you focus on the nearer kid but want the other in focus also.

For this what you are suggesting makes perfect sense, as you are trying to use your DOF to maximize subject coverage.

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I mean getting the front of the car and the windshield in focus. I mean getting the front of the elephant head and the ears in focus. I mean. In general. Not just increasing the depth of field. But using more of the depth of field that exists. You would do this naturally if you were taking photographs of small parts with a manual focus lens on a tripod. You would adjust the focus to adjust the location of the center of the depth of field while you adjusted the aperture to adjust the depth of the depth of field. But with handheld action shots of course you can not do that.

Timza wrote in post #17994840
I mean getting the front of the car and the windshield in focus. I mean getting the front of the elephant head and the ears in focus. I mean. In general. Not just increasing the depth of field. But using more of the depth of field that exists. You would do this naturally if you were taking photographs of small parts with a manual focus lens on a tripod. You would adjust the focus to adjust the location of the center of the depth of field while you adjusted the aperture to adjust the depth of the depth of field. But with handheld action shots of course you can not do that.

With handheld action shots you can still tell the camera where to focus. . So in the case of the elephant, if you want the front of the face to be in focus and you also want the ears to be in focus, then you would put the active focus sensor on a part of the head that is midway between the front of the face and the ears. .In this manner, you will be using all of the DOF that you have available to you to the greatest advantage.


I do this all of the time with deer, wild sheep, birds, etc. . With deer action shots it is particularly important because, as in all wildlife photography, you really want/need to have the eyes in perfectly sharp focus, but you also want all of the antlers to be in focus as well. . The bigger the rack the more difficult this becomes, and you have to be really careful with exactly what part of the head you focus on.. Even moreso for Elk or Moose, which have much more extensive antler systems.

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Timza wrote in post #17988887
I have a Canon 50D. I have been working today and tonight on setting my Auto Focus Micro Adjustment. Even if you know what your micro adjustment is for a specific lens, do you ever move the number toward the back, maybe while thinking what your depth of field is going to be, to get your entire subject in focus? For example, if I am taking a picture of a person or car or motorcycle coming at me, and I focus on some front part of the subject, then half of the depth of field is in front of the subject, and not being used. Or do you feel the adjustment numbers are too large a gap and afraid or have experienced pushing the plane of focus too far back so that the front of a subject is now out of focus. You have permission to tell me I am over thinking this.

You are spot on with your logic. Sometime in indoor sports with the thin dof from large aperture, focus is grabbed on the leading hands or ball or equioment; as a photog it is not uncommon to dil in some extra +mfa so the face is in focus.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17994867
I do this all of the time with deer, wild sheep, birds, etc. . With deer action shots it is particularly important because, as in all wildlife photography, you really want/need to have the eyes in perfectly sharp focus, but you also want all of the antlers to be in focus as well. . The bigger the rack the more difficult this becomes, and you have to be really careful with exactly what part of the head you focus on.. Even moreso for Elk or Moose, which have much more extensive antler systems.

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I do agree, however, I find that in some situations my skill is not as good as I'd like and I use the OP's technique. I don't think I have used it on wildlife though - like you say you really need to get the focus on the eye and also probably determine for each shot, depending on the angle, exactly where to place the focus point.

I think the last time I used the MFA technique was taking pics of my son running. I found the runners bobbed their heads so much that it was hard for me to get it in focus. Now of course this is not something I practiced a lot, so I'm sure with more practice I'd figure it out. However, I found that by focusing on their jersey and a -ve FMA (I think -ve) then I got better results. Also in some cases - like perhaps the cars windshields? what you want to focus on has low contrast and so may be hard to get a good lock.