Tom K.
Regular
- Location
- Connecticut.
- Name
- Tom
Ladies and gentleman. I went out yesterday and shot my new Ricoh GR for the first time. There is a thread here I started asking for advice about using the camera: https://www.photographerslounge.org/f103/1st-ricoh-gr-outing-saturday-advice-needed-21641/
Well.....I took over 500 shots and missed focus on my primary subject on almost every shot. Keep on mind I shoot VERY close to people. My primary subjects are candid portraits of people and I shoot from the hip or chest high. The photos come close but they are frustratingly not sharp where I need them to be. The subject ended up being enough out of focus to annoy me yet roughly a few feet behind the subject all the way to infinity were razor sharp.
I shot Tav with f/6.3 at 1/500th of a second auto-ISO. Plenty of light so no problems there. In some darker areas the ISO was up pretty high but the grain was gorgeous. I have no qualms about shooting ISO 6400 with that camera. ISO 10000 didn't bother me either. Most shots were ISO 400 I believe.
I had SNAP focus set to 2 meters. I am wondering if 1.5 meters would have worked for me in this case.
I am new to snap focus but man if I can get it to work the way I need then this will be the greatest photo related revaluation of all time for me personally. I absolulty love the way it works and to me the Ricoh GR is a dream camera. Small, unobtrusive, easy to operate with one hand. No one even knew I was shooting its so discreet. I just need to figure out this SNAP focus thing and if I can get it to do what I need then man will I be happy.
If you look at the street photos in my Flickr photostream you can see how close I like to get. Flickr: Tom Kaszuba's Photostream
The fact that I shot with SNAP focus at 2 meters......would my problem have been solved if I just cranked it back to 1.5 meters? Or........should I use another method of zone focusing? I never use auto-focus in these street shooting situations. Always zone. Hopefully SNAP will work out for me. I am new to Ricoh and SNAP focusing so any and all advice will be heeded.
Here is an example of what I am talking about.
View attachment 75892
Please view the full size image on Flickr. As you can see the young woman is not tack sharp at all. The people in the background are tack sharp. The full size image on my computer shows this in a much more pronounced way. She is not in sharp focus. Probably a couple of feet behind her is.
I am telling you folks.....I love this Ricoh GR. It is incredible. It's my first time out with it so I didn't expect perfection. In fact I expected to have something like this happen. Previewing the images on the LCD didn't quite cut it for me as far as zooming in on the face to see if it was razor sharp or just out of focus. On those small LCD's it's hard to tell the difference between tack sharp and out of focus....unless it's extreme.
I have to figure this out. I was sooooo close. I missed a ton of great photos by probably a couple of feet of focus zone. I need tack sharp subjects that are close to me. My signature shot is shooting the camera from the hip pointing up as I frame from say about belt high to the top of the subjects head. I sometimes cut off the top of the head which I sometimes like. My Flickr photostream shows the deal on my style.
I am sorry to ramble on here. I am just so dad gum close to getting this thing right. I need the advise of folks like you who have shot the GR for a while and know it well.
Thank you all so very much.
PS....I am not sure why the exif data didn't show up on Flickr. All my shots were f/6.3, 1/500th of a second. Various ISO's but mostly 400.
Well.....I took over 500 shots and missed focus on my primary subject on almost every shot. Keep on mind I shoot VERY close to people. My primary subjects are candid portraits of people and I shoot from the hip or chest high. The photos come close but they are frustratingly not sharp where I need them to be. The subject ended up being enough out of focus to annoy me yet roughly a few feet behind the subject all the way to infinity were razor sharp.
I shot Tav with f/6.3 at 1/500th of a second auto-ISO. Plenty of light so no problems there. In some darker areas the ISO was up pretty high but the grain was gorgeous. I have no qualms about shooting ISO 6400 with that camera. ISO 10000 didn't bother me either. Most shots were ISO 400 I believe.
I had SNAP focus set to 2 meters. I am wondering if 1.5 meters would have worked for me in this case.
I am new to snap focus but man if I can get it to work the way I need then this will be the greatest photo related revaluation of all time for me personally. I absolulty love the way it works and to me the Ricoh GR is a dream camera. Small, unobtrusive, easy to operate with one hand. No one even knew I was shooting its so discreet. I just need to figure out this SNAP focus thing and if I can get it to do what I need then man will I be happy.
If you look at the street photos in my Flickr photostream you can see how close I like to get. Flickr: Tom Kaszuba's Photostream
The fact that I shot with SNAP focus at 2 meters......would my problem have been solved if I just cranked it back to 1.5 meters? Or........should I use another method of zone focusing? I never use auto-focus in these street shooting situations. Always zone. Hopefully SNAP will work out for me. I am new to Ricoh and SNAP focusing so any and all advice will be heeded.
Here is an example of what I am talking about.
View attachment 75892
Please view the full size image on Flickr. As you can see the young woman is not tack sharp at all. The people in the background are tack sharp. The full size image on my computer shows this in a much more pronounced way. She is not in sharp focus. Probably a couple of feet behind her is.
I am telling you folks.....I love this Ricoh GR. It is incredible. It's my first time out with it so I didn't expect perfection. In fact I expected to have something like this happen. Previewing the images on the LCD didn't quite cut it for me as far as zooming in on the face to see if it was razor sharp or just out of focus. On those small LCD's it's hard to tell the difference between tack sharp and out of focus....unless it's extreme.
I have to figure this out. I was sooooo close. I missed a ton of great photos by probably a couple of feet of focus zone. I need tack sharp subjects that are close to me. My signature shot is shooting the camera from the hip pointing up as I frame from say about belt high to the top of the subjects head. I sometimes cut off the top of the head which I sometimes like. My Flickr photostream shows the deal on my style.
I am sorry to ramble on here. I am just so dad gum close to getting this thing right. I need the advise of folks like you who have shot the GR for a while and know it well.
Thank you all so very much.
PS....I am not sure why the exif data didn't show up on Flickr. All my shots were f/6.3, 1/500th of a second. Various ISO's but mostly 400.