photo weekend continues.
i shot this myself. the focus is clear enough on the polaroid to count eyelashes. i may have read about this somewhere, i can’t remember now. in any case, it’s good for two things. one, it is a great way to use yourself as a subject and get good focus. two, it speeds up the actual shooting where you could shoot multiple people in succession with minimal sitting time. the latter is my end goal i think.
this pre-focus technique is easy.
first, guage how far you want your camera from the actual subject. put the camera at that distance from the wall.
tape a small object on the wall, like a quarter or a 4×5 polaroid with handwriting on it. :) apply any movements you like and focus the camera sharply on the object. if you use movement, remember or mark on the ground glass where the focus area was.
measure the distance from camera to subject. for this, i used a length of wire. i tied the wire around a horizontal bar on the front standard of my camera, just under the lens. i used wire because i could stretch the wire to the subject and make a kink (bend and fold back) in the wire that would stay there.
move the camera away, usually back from its original position. prepare the camera for exposure. load film, polaroid, etc.
bring in the subject. if you used movement, look at the ground glass and move the camera until the desired area of focus is on the pre-focused spot. don’t touch the focus controls of the camera. use the measuring device you used to put the subject at the pre-determined distance to the camera. you can have the subject hold the twine or wire up until the point of exposure. they are less likely to move in the short time required to drop the wire and pop the flash.
so far, this method has worked well for me in using myself as a subject.
