It was useful for cameras before SLRs. The only way you could do
close focus with early cameras was to carry a small chain to measure
the distance to the subject. It would be useful now as you point out
to set a hyperfocal point.
Winsor
Long Beach, California, USA
On Dec 7, 2005, at 7:39 AM, Dan Mitchell wrote:
> Daniel Sepke wrote:
>> From pictures
>> of the lens itself if it is definitely in the consumer class of DZ
>> lenses.
>> It lacks the window with a focus scale so I imagine its use will
>> be pretty
>> much limited to AF or MF guesswork.
>
> Maybe I'm missing something here, but how does a focus scale help
> with
> accurate focus? Roughly, sure, I can tell if it's at the near or
> far end
> of the range when things are completely blurred.
>
> But I can't see how you'd use the focus scale for critical focus at
> all. Firstly I'd have to get an accurate measurement from the nodal
> point(?) of the lens to the thing I'm trying to take a shot of; heck,
> the bit of that object that I wanted to be in focus, which would be
> pretty fiddly if I was going for the insides of a flower, say.
>
> Secondly, I'd have to turn the lens until the focus distance on
> there
> matched the distance to subject, and I can't see how that could be
> done
> accurately at all given the amount of turn from end to end on most
> lenses. If someone made a lens which took multiple rotations to shift
> focus, maybe, but with the usual one-turn-or-less I'm not sure how
> this
> would work.
>
> Presumably in the real world nobody would genuinely try to set
> something in focus without ever looking through the viewfinder, but
> once
> you _are_ looking through the viewfinder then what does a focus
> scale on
> the lens get you?
>
> Is this just for setting things at hyperfocal distance or something?
>
> -- dan
>
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