General focusing questions

[dennis646]

Finally got my GAF 128 XL today and had a few questions for anyone out there who can answer them. Please excuse me if my questions seem ridiculously dumb.

1. The 1:1 on the lens means I can get how close to my subject?
2. It seems to be a through the lens system but the focusing knob has feet measurements and zone focusing symbols like some of my point and shoot cameras. Does this mean I am dealing with zone focusing?
3. What does my backlight feature do?

Thanks!

[dennis646]

Thank you so much!! This is one of the most helpful boards around. I really appreciate the answers.

I just bought a roll of PLUS X film and am going to run a test roll thru the camera to properly test everything.

Thanks so much again!

[Alex]

The 1:1 MIGHT refer to the widest open F-stop setting. But then that would make your camera an "XL" camera, which means existing light.

Oh wait, your camera IS an XL, there you go!

The backlight setting does not refer to the light at your back, but to the light IN FRONT OF YOU. Think of it as when you have to squint because it's bright in front of you. In those filming situations where it's brighter in front of you than behind you, the automatic metering (auto iris) in the camera will most likely be fooled into underexposing the exposure of the shot.

The Backlight function basically opens up the f-stop by one to two stops when in the automatic mode. Keep in mind that even in situations where the backlight function could be used, if the shot you are getting is a close-up you probably won't need the backlight feature because the background will be severly minimized and the auto iris probably won't be fooled that badly.

You might be dealing with zone focusing if the camera has a very small zoom ratio. Cameras with zoom ratios of 3-1 or less have less focus issues than cameras with zoom ratios greater than 3-1.

Zoom ratios are calculated by knowing the widest the camera lens will go to the most telephoto position the camera will go. If a camera has a 9-36 zoom range, that would be a 4-1 zoom ratio.

I hope that helps.