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best way to focus for a night/dusk cityscape

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christiano:
I took some good pictures of a cityscape from a distance (a river separates me from the city), in long exposure, just after the blue hour, some were rejected for the reason "not in focus" ... I have a pana g85 and I wonder if the best way to focus a cityscape is to use a focus to infinity ... panasonic does not talk about this function in the guide, I'm a little lost ... do you know the best method to this type of picture?

My method: I focus on a particular point and then I put the camera in manual mode + manual focus, then I take the pose ...

thank you.

SuperPhoto:
mm, two things, without actually seeing the picture.

a) Maybe you really do have a good quality image, and the agency you submitted to rejected it. Don't take it personally, not everyone accepts everything. It doesn't necessary mean its a 'bad' image - just means they don't want it for their site.

b) if it is a large cityscape - I find focusing on a stronger lightsource tends to produce a better picture, because then the exposure/etc is set correctly for the surrounding elements. I'd also do a couple tests to see what produces the best results for you.

PaulieWalnuts:

--- Quote from: christiano on April 25, 2018, 19:58 ---I took some good pictures of a cityscape from a distance (a river separates me from the city), in long exposure, just after the blue hour, some were rejected for the reason "not in focus" ... I have a pana g85 and I wonder if the best way to focus a cityscape is to use a focus to infinity ... panasonic does not talk about this function in the guide, I'm a little lost ... do you know the best method to this type of picture?

My method: I focus on a particular point and then I put the camera in manual mode + manual focus, then I take the pose ...

thank you.

--- End quote ---

When using manual are you magnifying to confirm you're getting sharp focus? If you look at the photo at 100% on your computer is it sharp? If it's sharp then you may be getting a generic rejection in that they don't think the photo is sellable but are just using out of focus as an excuse to reject it.

If at 100% it's not in focus/blurry it could be a lot of different reasons. A soft lens. Long exposure blur due to camera movement. Modern focusing systems are ultra reliable. I mainly use Sony and autofocus on night cityscapes is rock solid. Try focusing on a high contrast area such as the corner of the building where the there's light and also black. Use a wireless remote shutter release or the 2-5 second shutter delay. If it's windy put a weight under the  tripod or lower the legs on the tripod.

increasingdifficulty:

--- Quote from: christiano on April 25, 2018, 19:58 ---My method: I focus on a particular point and then I put the camera in manual mode + manual focus, then I take the pose ...

--- End quote ---

"Focus on a particular point" - do you mean point the camera there and then use manual focus to focus? Or do you mean use autofocus to focus, and then change to manual focus just so it doesn't change when you take the picture?

Panasonic mirrorless cameras are not necessarily reliable when it comes to night photography autofocus. You need to double-check and focus manually, with the biggest magnification possible on the screen.

Also make sure you focus with the aperture wide open! This is very important. If you're planning on taking the picture at f9 on an f4 lens for example, you may THINK you focused correctly at f9, but if changed to f4, you might see that the focus is actually quite off.

When you take the picture, make sure you're using the sweet spot aperture of your lens, which is usually around two-three stops down from wide open. Like Paulie said, also use a shutter delay of at least 2 seconds to eliminate any camera shake from your hand.

One last thing - if you stop down too much to get a really long shutter speed, say f22 or f16, your image will also become blurry. This is called diffraction and becomes very apparent on cityscapes with lots of small details. You may need an ND filter even at night if you want to use really long shutter speeds. If you use an ND filter, focus without it, and put it on after. Just make sure you don't touch the focus ring while putting it on.  :)

---

To sum up:

• Focus manually, don't trust autofocus!
• Focus with the aperture wide open, and a shutter speed fast enough (like 1/50) so you can see the changes in real time. You will have to raise the ISO temporarily to see anything.
• Change back to the settings you want to use for the photo. Usually an aperture setting of 2-3 stops down from wide open, lowest possible ISO and a long shutter.
• Don't use a really closed down aperture (high f number like f16/f22) - your photo will not be sharp.
• Use a shutter delay, or remote trigger.

One last thing - most lenses will actually go "beyond" infinity focus, which means if you just set it to focus at the maximum distance, it will be very out of focus. Never do that. You could of course find out where true infinity focus is on your particular lens, and mark it. There would still be margin for error so I would double-check both one and two times.  ;)

Uncle Pete:
I think it's covered, focus on a dot of light, in the distance, manually (read all of the above) wide open.

Mirror lock up if it's not already on the list. I don't know if I missed reading that?

I just want to repeat, you need a rock solid tripod, and if you aren't on firm ground, the floor, wooden deck, or anything that can vibrate, traffic, will cause movement. If these are long time exposures, you should have a brick, rock, old lifting weight or something heavy, attached to the center of your tripod, to prevent minor movement.

(borrowed from this site: http://www.instructables.com/id/Tripod-stabilizer-weight-hook/ )

I've set up on a balcony on a building, concrete, 10th floor and done some night shots. They had shakes, and I was inside. The building moved!

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