How to nail focus with manual focusing lenses wide open

[ndwgolf]

I am sure there are many different ways to manually focus old manual focusing lenses. But the way I like to do it especially with very large aperture lenses for example like my 50+ year old Nikkor 55mm F1.2 pre ai lens. I like to get the initial focus using the cameras (in my case Nikon ZF) builtin zoom function with the aperture wide open at f1.2 then use the cameras multiple frame function set at say 3-5 FPS. I then fire off a few bursts intentionally moving my head slightly back and forward.
You might fire off 20 or 30 frames but you can almost guarantee to have one or two frames tack sharp.........good luck

 

[Barney]

That's a brilliant tip,

How many times do you slightly rock or breath and lose the focus, it doesn't take much at shallow depth of fields.

A fair bit in my case with my wonky knees, arthritic thumbs and dodgy glasses.

to move intentionally and get a couple of good ones

 

[woof woof]

My technique is just to use the magnified view, be still and keep the shutter speed up. If I think I might struggle I'll take more than one picture but I've never taken double figure shots, just normally one or two. I suppose it depends on your focal length and distance and how big the area you're focusing on is in the frame and of course the size of the final image or how close you pixel peep but even at f1.2 you should still have some wiggle room.

 

[LeeRatters]

Compose, magnify on the focus point, focus, capture. That's always worked for me.

I'm not messing with 20-30 frames when I can take one