My lense will not focus for an extreme close up shot,

H

harmonica44

If I want to shoot a person or object extremely close the lens cannot focus that close. I have a 50mm. I have tried different aperture settings from f4 to f22 and it still will not focus close up. By close up I mean as close up as 8 seconds into this video example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kD54-q1uFM

Any thought on this how to get a lens to focus that close? Thanks.
 
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This comes back to another of your posts, where you asked if you should trade you 50mm for another lens. Advice was given to keep your lens, and add to your selection. I've always read if you had to have only 3 lens for film making, you'd want a 35, 50, and 85.

But as was stated above, every lens has a min focusing distance. If you get too close, it can't focus on the subject. A longer lens will get you that close shot, without having to be that close to the subject.
 
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Get a longer lens, or use a diopter. Lenses have minimum focus distances, it's simply how they're designed. If you're looking to do very close shots, that's something you need to consider when purchasing your lenses - do you purchase macro lenses that can focus really close? And/or do you purchase longer lenses to get you a closer shot (there are differences between using a macro lens close up and using a long lens from farther away, but it will get you the shot nonetheless)? And/or do you purchase a diopter?
 
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You should spend a few days on the many great youtube video DSLR tutorials out there. I learnt a huge amount from them - lens selection, camera work, how to capture great audio, lighting etc.

Given your number of posts (nearly 4k), I'm pretty stunned you're asking such a basic DSLR/lens question.

I particularly like:

http://www.learningdslrvideo.com/
 
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Okay thanks. I will watch more tutorials.

Jeff Troiano said:
This comes back to another of your posts, where you asked if you should trade you 50mm for another lens. Advice was given to keep your lens, and add to your selection. I've always read if you had to have only 3 lens for film making, you'd want a 35, 50, and 85.

But as was stated above, every lens has a min focusing distance. If you get too close, it can't focus on the subject. A longer lens will get you that close shot, without having to be that close to the subject.
Click to expand...

I also tried a 75-300mm at different distances, but that was actually has less focus on close up shots, than the 50mm, and was just worse.
 
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harmonica44 said:
I also tried a 75-300mm at different distances, but that was actually has less focus on close up shots, than the 50mm, and was just worse.
Click to expand...

It's impossible.

That just means you have no idea how to use a lens.

If you zoom all the way to 300mm, you will have to be far enough from the dude that you'll have no trouble focusing on him.
 
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Okay I will try again. I must have been doing something wrong and only had the lens for a short amount of time to practice. Unfortunately though I will need a prime lens, since the location will not allow me to use lighting. It's a street location at night. I suppose I can shoot it with a zoom lens and de-noise it but then I might as well shoot the whole thing at f5.6 and denoise the whole thing to match.
 
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OK... here's the part where everyone laughs at me, then tries it and stops laughing.

Remove the lens from the camera.
Focus it as close as it'll go.
Flip it around to the front of the lens is pointed into your camera.
Move the camera until the object you want in focus is in focus.
Take picture...
too close? Dial the focus out a bit, then repeat the procedure.
 
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harmonica44 said:
It's a street location at night. I suppose I can shoot it with a zoom lens and de-noise it but then I might as well shoot the whole thing at f5.6 and denoise the whole thing to match.
Click to expand...

Using a zoom at night will likely produce a hell of a lot of noise. Depends how much you have to zoom etc but the results may will be pretty terrible. Denoising works to an extent but I doubt you'll get the results you want - do a test shoot, see what you get.

A very expensive fixed aperture zoom lens may will be able to handle such a situation but such lenses are damn expensive. You could hire but in Vancouver, even hiring is costly.

And get your focusing technique right. Again, youtube was a great help to me there. The DSLR pros used field monitors to help them. Those on a budget recommended using the camera's display (not lens) zoom to zoom into the eyes of your subject then hit focus. If your subject's eyes are in focus, they'll be in focus.

And when you do your night tests, you're obviously going to need a tripod.
 
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I tried the 75-300 again, and the focus on the extreme close ups works, if I am in between 200-300. Anything less will not work it seems.

I will try downloading a free trial of denoiser II, and see. Basically I want results that would be considered good cinematography. Of course I would hire a DP when it comes to the shooting stage, but so far the DPs I have met tell me that they learned to use lots of light in film school, and haven't learned what to do in my situations, where the budget is too low. So I have to make some of the cinematography decisions myself. One DP I know has a zoom lens that is a fixed aperture and is 1.4 at all focal lengths.

If I could get him for it, that will help. But want to prepare for the worse if I cannot get him. It's hard to use the free trial though, cause an expert of using the program will do a better job of denoising a movie, the right way and preserve quality, compared to a beginner of the temporary free trial though.
 
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I don't know but he zoomed in and camera display screen still said 1.4 on it, and the exposure never changed. He's not using a GH2 or othe DSLR like camera but an older camera that is big, long and heavy that is over the shoulder and takes DV cassettes.
 
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harmonica44 said:
I don't know but he zoomed in and camera display screen still said 1.4 on it, and the exposure never changed. He's not using a GH2 or othe DSLR like camera but an older camera that is big, long and heavy that is over the shoulder and takes DV cassettes.
Click to expand...

It might be a B4 or similar broadcast lens, in which case it would not cover the frame of your camera.
 
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