I'm just getting into filmmaking, so I've been reading a lot of books and finding out as much as I can. I've got a camara that looks okay (Sankyo ES-44 XL). I got some film the other day from Kodak. But I'm still trying to figure out how to properly focus my camera. I'm afraid to film anything until I'm confident what I shoot will come out in focus.
The camera has a split image range finder. It's a circle in the middle of the viewing screen with a horizontal line down the middle. Nothing else.
I understand how I'm supposed to focus on an object, but I'm not sure if it's working properly. I've been aiming my camera at objects with straight lines, with that horizontal line over top of them, then adjusting the focus ring until the line in the object isn't broken.
My problem is that the object sometimes doesn't look sharp once I do this. The line in the object is good, but the image now seems not so sharp. I don't get it. Does this make any sense?
(I can get sharp images without performing this "broken line" correction. But I've read that this doesn't mean the image will come out in focus. It just seems strange to look at a not so sharp image that the range finder says is now good and sharp.)
This is nothing to be concerned about. You should use the split-image prism as your guide and forget about trying to focus so that the image looks sharp in the viewfinder.
Because the majority of super8 cameras do not have ground-glass screens, you cannot rely on how sharp the image looks in the viewfinder to focus your image.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You have to set the diopter to your eyesight first. Here are the instructions straight from the manualOriginally posted by Pennyroyal:
I'm just getting into filmmaking, so I've been reading a lot of books and finding out as much as I can. I've got a camara that looks okay (Sankyo ES-44 XL). I got some film the other day from Kodak. But I'm still trying to figure out how to properly focus my camera. I'm afraid to film anything until I'm confident what I shoot will come out in focus.
1) Set zoom ring to 34mm
2) Set focus ring to infinity
3) Turn the diopter control ring (eyepiece) so that a distant subject (over 330 feet) and the center line of the split image focussing circle can be seen most clearly. Make sure that the upper and lower halves of the subject in the circle alighn perfectly with each other.
(me) So it is best to do this on a nice bright day. Find a distant subject like a mountain, skycraper or a nice sharp cloud and follow the above and you will be all set.
I don't have a manual so it's been sort of hell trying to figure this camera out. I thought I had the diopter set okay, but I'll do it again to make sure it's right. Thank you to both of you!
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