How to fix this?

KTBoom2006-E510

How can I fix a front focusing problem on my camera? I notice every once in a while I get a picture where it focuses on something in front of what I am trying to take a picture of. Like THIS




Thanks to my lovely husband for letting me take a billion pictures of him I got it where it focused wrong ... Pease HELP ME :cry

RBrogen

KTBoom2006-E510 wrote:

How can I fix a front focusing problem on my camera? I notice every once in a while I get a picture where it focuses on something in front of what I am trying to take a picture of. Like THIS




Thanks to my lovely husband for letting me take a billion pictures of him I got it where it focused wrong ... Pease HELP ME :cry

KTBoom2006: what kind of camera are you using? Typically you'll have focus indicators that you can see when you look in the view finder and the one that lights up when you press halfway down on the shutter will be where the primary focus will be. Also if you are in Auto-Mode then the camera may be focusing on something other than what you want it to.

KTBoom2006-E510

RBrogen wrote:

KTBoom2006: what kind of camera are you using? Typically you'll have focus indicators that you can see when you look in the view finder and the one that lights up when you press halfway down on the shutter will be where the primary focus will be. Also if you are in Auto-Mode then the camera may be focusing on something other than what you want it to.

I have an Olympus E-510 and it uses a 3 focal dots. In this picture, i focused it on the middle dot right on his eye. I wait until the camera beeps at me that it has focused it in the area I specified it, then I click it.

RBrogen

does the focal points light up when it focuses? What mode are you shooting in?

KTBoom2006-E510

RBrogen wrote:

does the focal points light up when it focuses? What mode are you shooting in?

Yes, the dot that I chose as my focal point will light up along with a beep when it has focused. I shoot only in Manual mode

RBrogen

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with that camera but the usual suspects that cause a mis-focus is slight camera or subject movement after the focal point has been set or the wrong focal point being selected. Hopefully someone else here with experience with this particular camera can assist. Good Luck to you.

KTBoom2006-E510

RBrogen wrote:

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with that camera but the usual suspects that cause a mis-focus is slight camera or subject movement after the focal point has been set or the wrong focal point being selected. Hopefully someone else here with experience with this particular camera can assist. Good Luck to you.

thank you, I hope so too....

ShepsMom

KT, have you tried using tripod with this? See if it might help somewhat. What are your shutter/aperture/iso settings? Do u always auto focus or you have option to focus manually?

KTBoom2006-E510

ShepsMom wrote:

KT, have you tried using tripod with this? See if it might help somewhat. What are your shutter/aperture/iso settings? Do u always auto focus or you have option to focus manually?

I do a lot of running around the house taking pictures, so a tripod isn't something I want to carry. And I usually have the Shutter at or above 125 (that is what I was told to use after talking about sharpness awhile ago) my aperature is at 4.7 and my ISO is 200. I use my autofocus unless it won't focus on a object b/c I am to close, then I do manual focus.

The only reason I was asking about front focusing problems is b/c I had read somewhere, that cameras that do that need to be fixed. Like I said, it don't do it everytime... but the times it does it drives me crazy. I didn't know if there was a way to fix it, or if my camera is broke and need to send it back.... I don't think it is me making it focus on other objects. My husband I was putting the dot right in his eye and waited for the camera to flash the dot and beep at me to tell me it was focused.

jeffreaux2

Does it misbehave with this one lens...or others as well?

marlof

I don't think this is a matter of front focussing, but of getting to know your camera's behavior better. If this is the full 4:3 frame, I'd say that the area in focus (the Coke can) falls under the right focus dot, not on the middle one that you said you used to focus on the eye of your husband.

I have my camera usually setup so that it only uses the middle focus point, and use focus/recompose: make sure the middle focus point falls on the spot you want to focus on, half press the shutting until the camera gives a focus confirmation and then (while keeping the shutter half pressed, or lock the focus with the AFL button) recompose to enable that focussed spot to fall anywhere in your frame. Especially with wide apertures and short distances you do have to make sure that this focussed spot remains in focus, since recomposing might make enough difference in relative distance that you lose focus.

If you want to rule out there's any front or backfocussing with your camera (in all honesty, I haven't heard much about those issues with the digital Zuiko lenses and Olympus cameras), you might want to test things by trying to rule out operator error. Have your camera on a tripod, make a nice test setup, and shoot many pics while making sure that you keep the shutter half pressed after you get a focus confirmation (or use the AFL button to lock the focus) and shoot.

KTBoom2006-E510

jeffreaux2 wrote:

Does it misbehave with this one lens...or others as well?

I will have to test that out. My other lens gives a wide look, and I don't use it hardly at all. So maybe I will start messing around with it and see if it does it as well.... Thanks for the thought, I will try it out tomorrow!

KTBoom2006-E510

marlof wrote:

I don't think this is a matter of front focussing, but of getting to know your camera's behavior better. If this is the full 4:3 frame, I'd say that the area in focus (the Coke can) falls under the right focus dot, not on the middle one that you said you used to focus on the eye of your husband.

I have my camera usually setup so that it only uses the middle focus point, and use focus/recompose: make sure the middle focus point falls on the spot you want to focus on, half press the shutting until the camera gives a focus confirmation and then (while keeping the shutter half pressed, or lock the focus with the AFL button) recompose to enable that focussed spot to fall anywhere in your frame. Especially with wide apertures and short distances you do have to make sure that this focussed spot remains in focus, since recomposing might make enough difference in relative distance that you lose focus.



If you want to rule out there's any front or backfocussing with your camera (in all honesty, I haven't heard much about those issues with the digital Zuiko lenses and Olympus cameras), you might want to test things by trying to rule out operator error. Have your camera on a tripod, make a nice test setup, and shoot many pics while making sure that you keep the shutter half pressed after you get a focus confirmation (or use the AFL button to lock the focus) and shoot.

well I don't use the auto focusing, I might've made it seem like that. But I change what dot i use for each picture I take. So that one I selected the middle dot. I don't like the auto b/c I don't like the idea of the camera chosing what spot to focus on.

marlof

KTBoom2006-E510 wrote:

So that one I selected the middle dot.

That's weird, since the area in focus falls exactly under the right dot, and the difference in distance between the can and your husbands eye is that large, that I don't think it's a matter of front focussing.

KTBoom2006-E510

This is where my focus dots are. I used the middle one

marlof

The way you spread them out make them evenly distributed across the middle line, which they are not in the E510 screen. If that is where your focus dots were, this image is a crop of the original. The three focus points of the E510 are grouped together in (the middle) and on the edge (the left and right one) of the circle in the middle in your focusing screne. The total focussing area is in the middle third of your focus screen. To check, see the image on the viewfinder screen in the review at Dpreview.

I hope you don't mind my superimposing your shot on that image, which (with some ugly screen draws to emphasize what's going on) results to this:



As you can see, the top of the beer can falls (just) inside the square surrounding the right focus point. Not only that, also the middle focus point does not fall on the right eye, so that would mean there'd be some recomposing going on anyhow. The EXIF of your file shows that you did use Single AF, and the center focus point by the way. Which, if you didn't move after getting focus confirmation, and the AF would work correctly, should have lead to a sharp nose. :-) My advice to rule out operator error by fixing your camera with a tripod still stands BTW.

Mnemosyne

What about the metering mode? Evaluative vs Spot vs Center Weighted vs etc?

Doesn't that involve focusing too? Maybe it's making an average of the two spots, and picking the can because it's brighter and more shiny.

Another thing would be if you're focusing and recomposing. If it beeps at you and it's a low light (or underexposed) that when you recompose, it's refocusing. You might be recomposing too soon. Instead of just waiting for the beep, wait until the red dot stops blinking. I shoot low light situations a lot, and my camera usually is still focusing even though it beeped. So I have to wait until it stops blinking, not until it beeps.

kini62

I see you used flash. Are you using the onboard flash? Are you using flash focus assist with either the onboard or shoe mount flash? Red eye reduction on/off?

Does the miss focus occur on non flash shots?

I'm think if using TTL flash the preflash in this case may have made the soda can an extremely enticing object for focus. It's close enough to the center point for the camera to shift there. The AF points are much larger than the image in the VF.

Try and test a similar setup without flash of with him or holding something not quite so bright.

Gene
PS: If it were truly an issue of FF it would likely do it all the time.

pyry

If you see consistent focusing problems in certain conditions with one lens, you'll probably have to get it fixed. If you see focusing problems with all lenses you use, it's the body.

These things shouldn't be too much of a problem for a proper servicing place to fix.

If it's an occational issue, just fire off several shots with some re-focusing, something you probably do already

KTBoom2006-E510

Thank you all for the suggestions. I still haven't had time to test out the other lens, but I better do it soon b/c I have 2 weddings coming up in 1 MONTH! I don't know anyother way to setup my flash on my camera. I don't think I had red eye on though. And it is TTL on the flash itself. But I will look into it some more


THANKS