Night photography and focusing

[castor]

Hi all:

I am a newbie and am still in the learning/experimenting phase. I would like to know how does one shoot and focus at night given the fact the autofocusing most likely would not work and how to adjust through manual focusing to achieve sharp picture.

Also, I read somewhere that to shoot landscape etc, we need to focus at infinity. I tried to look up books and the web for info on this but still cannot really understand. How does one actually set the lens at infinity?

Apologies if these questions sound too fundamental. Appreciate your help. Thank you very much.

PS: I am using Nikon D80 with the kit lens.

 

[elmzarcega]

just turn your focus ring counter clockwise until you see the symbol "8 like in sideways position"...that's infinity focus....

 

[Michael]

shooting at night... indeed difficult, however the sensor in your D80 is quite sensitive and there is also the AF illuminator.... look out for spots with high contrast, this will help the focus, focus there then compose. if you use an external flash then it can send out a stronger AF illuminator beam....

landscape: no you should not focus to infinity, you should focus to the hyperfocal distance (i hope i spelled that right). lets say you shoot your scene with f8, then everything within a certain distance behind and in front of the focal distance is in focus, this space is usually called the Depth of Field or DOF. if you focus to infinity the DOF behind infinity (is there such a thing) is "lost". if you focus such that the end of the DOF just reaches infinity then you have double the DOF in your photo. the distance you focus to is the hyperfocal distance.

 

[miniUltraman]

http://www.dofmaster.com/hyperfocal.html#methods

 

[blive]

Try to determine the dist of your subject from your camera and adjust the lens accordingly.

 

[franky]

Use AF to gauge the distant and set it to MF. Shoot away..

 

[fv18m]

Bro,

think the kit lens does not come with a focus ring counter. It should be the 18-135mm DX lens. Unless, TS is using 18-70mm instead...

To the TS, I think it should be pretty easy to utilise AF. Just need to ensure that your focus point is on the subject, unless you're shooting a side scene (maybe half is just dark empty space, and the other half is your intended subject) - in which case you should adjust the AF points to be on your intended subject/s...

just turn your focus ring counter clockwise until you see the symbol "8 like in sideways position"...that's infinity focus....

 

[hairygorillaz]

ok...but i'm using a Sony DSC-H2. So i don't have a manual focus ring. how to i focus at infinity like that?

 

[borisi]

means cant lo....

ok...but i'm using a Sony DSC-H2. So i don't have a manual focus ring. how to i focus at infinity like that?

 

[zcf]

means cant lo....

that's not totally true, DPReview did stay H2 can Manual focus
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonyh2/

though don't have manual focus ring, there should be electronic button or something to let you focus manually, you will need to read you free manual to find out.