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Know Your Stuff STRUCTURESXX
Help me to
measure focus
YAKOBCHUK OLENA
Where do I measure
How should I organise focus distance from?
Is it the front of the lens
or from the camera?
my back catalogue? Tim Mullford, Coventry
Kirk says: Focusing distance is
I’ve decided to set myself the its own folder separated into RAW files measured from your sensor plane
project of sorting out my back and edited images. These folders can be to the point on the subject you are
catalogue of images, but it’s named and given a date, then placed into focusing on. It’s quite easy to
a mess. How is best to go about it? a containing genre folder. imagine it could extend from the
James Mayweather, Stoke-on-Trent Try to keep things consistent. If your front of the lens, as that’s where the
system is overly complex, this will lead to light enters your camera, but that’s
Chris says: Without a structured filing problems in finding your old images when not the case. If we dig a little
system, you can easily end up in a tangle you need to. Store these genre folders in deeper, the light passes through
of wayward files and maze-like folder a parent folder labelled by time period. the lens and converges on the
systems. The longer you leave it, the more Store your most recent on your computer sensor, and it’s this convergence
work it will be to unpick the mess. The and in the cloud. Then once you’ve point that we are measuring. We
first step is deciding how you want to sort exceeded the time period for that folder, want the distance from subject to
your images. Some people opt for filing by it can be archived and moved from your that point of convergence to be the
date, others by genre, location or subject. computer to a hard drive, while keeping same as the distance from the
A mix of the two is probably the best a back-up on the cloud. subject to our sensor. So in any
approach, but it is entirely up to you. If you use programs like Lightroom application where you need to
Choose whichever system makes the most you can create a catalogue for a time measure your focus distance, do it
sense to you as you’ll be the one accessing period and store it on the hard drive with from your camera’s sensor. This
the images. your images. That way when you come to distance will extend from any point
Sorting by genre makes it easier for you look through that hard drive, you can fire on your sensor, meaning the plane
to find a shot when you can’t remember up the Lightroom catalogue and browse of sharp focus will mirror your
which shoot you took it on, while sorting your images. sensor. For example, if your sensor
by date gives you an open-ended filing The sooner you is perpendicular to the ground, your
structure that you can spread easily over start, the less TIP focus plane will be too. If your
a number of hard drives or kept in cloud work you camera is pointed upwards putting
storage. One method that I find useful is will have MAKE A your sensor at a 45° angle relative
to keep all the images from each shoot in to do. BACK-UP to the ground, then your focus
plane will be at that same angle.
There are plenty of cloud
This is the principle that underpins
storage options. They are an
the tilt & shift lenses used in
excellent way to back up
architecture photography.
your images as a
safeguard.
Left Using
a workflow
program such as
Lightroom allows
you to label and
rate your images, Above The sensor plane is
saving you from indicated on your camera by
complex folder a circle with a line through it.
structures.
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