Composing your shot using manual lens

Hi,how do you guys compose your shots using manual lens...using the rule of 3rds say. Just say you want your subject to be in the bottom right 3rd ,obviously manual lenses only use center focus point so you can't use focus select or am i mistaken ,so what technique do you guys use . Apologies for the newbie question .

Sean

Addicted to everything manual

I use centre focus with all lenses, half pressing and recomposing.
And I use live view with digital zoom and focus peaking if manually focussing and the subject is static.

This was taken today with a manual lens on centre point focus. The focus point was top left of the bracket fungus where it joins the log. Hold the half-press once the focus is achieved and pan around to compose the shot. It's much easier than trying to retain the focus with an auto lens.

David

It depends what you are meaning by a manual lens. Manual focus? Manual stop down?

Let's take manual focus, where it really is just a matter of turning the focusing ring until the image is sharp in the viewfinder. What part of the image is up to the photographer.

To make focusing easier, make sure the dioptre correction is set up. Look at a blank wall or sky and turn the dioptre adjustment until the etched lines in the viewfinder are sharpest. That will adjust the viewfinder for your eyesight.

Agreed John, there really is no 'centre focus' for manual lenses. By being a manual lenses, there is no ability for the camera to automatically adjust the focus itself. From memory adjusting the dioptre without a lens attached works also.

The Pentax (on suitable models) will give a focus confirmation when something is in focus, and this shows you were it's detected this, as you adjust the manual focus ring. This is limited to where the autofocus sensor points are though I suspect.

I thought with a manual focus lens that ONLY the centre focus indicator worked at all? And i suspect that the focus hexagon only works when focus is achieved at the centre also ...

Our OP mentioned focus and recomposing holding the button, but in fact this is only applicable to autofocus ... Half pressing the shutter with manual focus (with an old lens or an af lens set to manual) will only activate the focus indicators, which will light when something in the centre is in focus ... The lens cannot'lock' focus as such.

In my experience it can be problematic focussing on the centre then recomposing with manual focus lenses, as something off from centre is rarely on the same plane and angle, so you lose sharpness slightly ... Better to use the techniques already described here by the others. Any way that magnifies the required point of focus so it can be' eyeballed' it's going to be most accurate.

Thank you Nigel....

You've just confirmed my thoughts on the matter .

Very much appreciated




A hungover .....

Sean

I agree too, Nigel

I often use the centre focus pint then re focus for landscape shots as I use a small aperture (as you do) and am not usually very close to the main part of the subject however, if it is a close subject I trust my eye

I love using manual lenses