LF focus at night

[John MacKechnie]

Ok. How do you do it? Any tips would be appreciated.

John

[Eric James]

I carry a small LED light with me - a trick I learned on this forum. It can be placed somewhere in your desired focus plane to aid focus and composition, and then removed after everything is ready to go.

[vinny]

Those fancy high powered green lasers attached to a flexible arm will work well too. Or get some monkeys to hold flashlights.

[Steven Barall]

You can glue fireflys to various things in the scene. The problem with monkeys is that they fling their poo.

[Ben Chase]

1 million candlepower spotlight.

[Greg Lockrey]

Focus in the day time and wait. :rolleyes:

[wfwhitaker]

Focus in the day time and wait. :rolleyes:

You joke. I've actually done that!

[Vick Vickery]

Those nice lazer sites that they make for firearms work well...sit one on something solid, turn it on, project a nice bright red dot on an appropriate spot in your scene. At night I can see the one on my S&W Centenial .38 Special a full block down the street (wonder if anybody in that house on the corner got upset about that??? No worry, I was gone long before that Cruiser went by. :) ) After you get your focus, turn off the dot and shoot with your camera instead of your gun!

[Daniel_Buck]

Those fancy high powered green lasers attached to a flexible arm will work well too. Or get some monkeys to hold flashlights.

I've wondered about those green lasers! I see I'm not the only one who thought it might be a good idea! Have you tried it? Does it work fairly well? I may have to pick one up now :)

I usually carry a flashlight with me, that's been doing ok so far, especially for closer objects.

[Ernest Purdum]

I'm with Ben Chase on this one. Although lasers are very much lighter and smaller, they are much less versatile than the remarkably inxpensive rechargable spotlights. I got mine from Harbor Freight but I've often seen them elsewhere.

[Greg Lockrey]

You joke. I've actually done that!

So have I, but it was to photograph a building at dusk and wait for night to get the interior lights in the windows. ;)

[jetcode]

sometimes I will shoot a scene that is at infinity at night, S.F. is an example. I use the available light of the city by picking out a highlight and focusing on that.

[David Luttmann]

Short of focussing the image in my mind, I use a green laser pointer. I picked it up for pointing out constellations to kids that come up to a public astronomy telescope viewing session that we do monthly. The laser provides a nice point source to focus upon.

[John MacKechnie]

Thanks for tips. I appreciate it.

John

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

It depends on the subject distance, if it is somewhat close, get a flash light that you can remove the cover so that the bulb is bare, place the flash light with the bare bulb where you want to focus and focus on the bulb.

If you are focusing on a city scape or landscape you can usually focus on a street light one third of the way and close down. I did this to photograph fire works in Houston and from a bridge using an aperture of f/8 everything was in focus.

Or you can use a dslr lcd screen and pretend everything is in focus, don't you know that lcd screens are better than the VC ground glass anyway?... :rolleyes:

[jetcode]

Or you can use a dslr lcd screen and pretend everything is in focus, don't you know that lcd screens are better than the VC ground glass anyway?... :rolleyes:

I always use the viewfinder to focus a DSLR. I use the LCD to give me a histogram of the exposure and when correctly exposed the LCD image is typically washed out depending on the scene and SBR. By the way on a 5D you can zoom the LCD image right down to the pixel and can use that for determining your focus however the viewfinder is far more immediate.

[David Luttmann]

I always use the viewfinder to focus a DSLR. I use the LCD to give me a histogram of the exposure and when correctly exposed the LCD image is typically washed out depending on the scene and SBR.

Same here. You can of course, only focus with an LCD if you are using a digital back on the view camera. As most people use a 4x to 8x loupe.....and most LCDs provide magnifications up to 32x, focussing is more accurate. As well, this can be done in the dark, without extra light being applied.

But as it has nothing to do with focussing for film, I'm not sure why it was even brought up as you can't shoot with film and focus on the LCD.

[Alan Davenport]

I can't believe nobody suggested using night vision goggles to see the groundglass.

[Mattg]

I use a small table showing distances on the rail between the standards for various focus distances. Having hyperfocal distances calculated for your normal working aperture is also very handy. It's only useful if you have the camera movements zeroed (and can rely on them being repeatable) but it can save a lot of mucking around at night.

The LED trick is great if you have to use swing or tilt, especially if you have more than one LED.

[John Bowen]

Ted Harris turned me on to those red laser pointers you would use if you were giving a powerpoint presentation. I carry 2 in my lens bag. They are great to focus in dark places. We used them at a Fine Focus Workshop on a very rainy day to focus on stuff in Bruce Barlow's garage when the electricity went out.

Ted was a wealth of knowledge on stuff like this....I miss him!

[rippo]

so why does everyone talk about green laser pointers, rather than the red ones john just mentioned? red seems like it'd be easier and cheaper (they've been around for ages). eyes are more sensitive to green light, is that it? or are the green ones more powerful? or just cooler?

i barely get out often enough at night with any camera, much less LF. but it's interesting none the less.

[Ben Chase]

so why does everyone talk about green laser pointers, rather than the red ones john just mentioned? red seems like it'd be easier and cheaper (they've been around for ages). eyes are more sensitive to green light, is that it? or are the green ones more powerful? or just cooler?

i barely get out often enough at night with any camera, much less LF. but it's interesting none the less.

Typically the green ones throw a dot that can been seen much further away.

[Bob Salomon]

Just be careful with those lasers. A father in Denville, NJ was sentenced to a prison term last year for flashing one of those green lasers (he was showing his son how powerful it was and reached the cockpit s of two different aircraft on landing approaches.

A flash light eliminates this possibility outdoors.

[lxdesign]

I guess it really depends on what you are shooting as well..... obviously if its a landscape shot... infinity would work without having to guess. I like the thought of having monkey's with flashlights.... but the flinging poo doesn't appeal to me.

[Leonard Metcalf]

Put three small led lights on the focus plane and then you can tilt and swing to your hearts content. Andrew Smallman taught me that one...

Regards,

Len

[Geert]

1 million candlepower spotlight.

Ditto here. Drawback is the limited independency, only 15 minutes before the beatteries are drained en need to be recharged.

G

[Andrew O'Neill]

Focus in the day time and wait.

I prefer working this way. Just as the sun drops out of sight, compose and focus. Then wait for darkness...click!

[Roger Krueger]

Almost all of my tripod night work I scale focus, both my Cambo Wide and my Mamiya Super 23. To me that's a huge advantage of helical systems like the Cambo or Fotoman over a traditional LF camera.

If only someone had an LF camera that could combine helical focus with back tilts like my Super 23. (Yeah, you have to do some math to figure out where the focus is at various points in the image, but the lens DOF scale helps a lot, and it's still FAR less annoying to me than crawling under a darkcloth late at night.)

[Matus Kalisky]

Concerning the lasers - watch out for the power. A "normal" laser pointer for a presentation has 1mW otput power and belongs to the lowest group of lasers. Such a low power laser does not cause harm even if pointed to someones eye accidentally. But then there are 5, 25, 50, 80 , 150, or even 350 mW (like THIS (http://cgi.ebay.de/Brand-New-Ultra-High-power-350mw-green-laser-pointer_W0QQitemZ130224490092QQihZ003QQcategoryZ14954QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) one)!!! pointers that can be bought e.g. via eBay and can be indeed harmfull. How much power would one need to use such a laser to ease the focusing I do not know.

[An Infinite Journey]

I can't believe nobody suggested using night vision goggles to see the groundglass.

Alan,
Have you used one? Would love to hear about your experience with them.

They are a bit expensive, but what isn't now a days....