RX-100 M2 and DMF focus mode - Images

I recently purchased a Sony RX100 M2 with Nauticam housing. I have two INON 165 lenses for macro. I read various discussions on-line regarding how to focus for best macro: Zoom to max. and manually focus while using diopters. On land, before I had a chance to dive with the rig I did some experimenting and tried the DMF setting. It seemed that once manually focused the manual focus distance was maintained even after auto focusing for WA.

I finally got to try my RX100 M2 rig out in the water. Four days in the California Channel Islands with Wetpixel and Bradley Photographic. I set the camera to DMF the entire trip and manually focused one time only on dry land with my diopters on. When in the water I moved in to the point where it looked in focus. Then, I half pressed to get a solid green auto focus indicator. Not every image was sharp due to various issues: 1.) I didn't always maintain my position due to surge 2.) I sometimes pressed too hard and took shots when the auto focus light was blinking. When all the issues aligned correctly the images were very sharp. Unfortunately, I only had good macro subjects to work on my last two dives so I didn't get to do a lot of experimenting. I was able to switch to WA and back without messing with the manual focus at all....for the entire 10 dives! I need to experiment more and pay more attention to how close I actually am to the critter using this method. It seemed to me I was at the distance I would expect for the diopters I was using.

Here are a few of my results. I don't recall if I used one or two of the Inon 165s for the nudibranch photos but I do know this was on my 10^th dive and I had not touched the manual focus since prior to dive 1. Yet, when I moved in close there was a point where I could see focus.

Has anyone else used this technique successfully?

Yes it works well for stills but you need to have peaking ON. Without peaking is painful especially the focus magnifier is a waste of time

Unfortunately for video it is not that useful unless you are totally steady with a tripod as the camera tried to autofocus regardless once you start recording so I only use manual focus

Looking at your still and considering the magnification at full zoom these here are with a single diopter

At 16.5 cm distance the rx100 has only 4mm depth of field when fully zoomed at f/11 and less than 2mm at 8.25cm with two diopters

So the area in focus is really shallow and not suited to tridimensional images where the subject is not flat on your screen

Yes it works well for stills but you need to have peaking ON. Without peaking is painful especially the focus magnifier is a waste of time

Unfortunately for video it is not that useful unless you are totally steady with a tripod as the camera tried to autofocus regardless once you start recording so I only use manual focus

Looking at your still and considering the magnification at full zoom these here are with a single diopter

At 16.5 cm distance the rx100 has less than 4mm depth of field when fully zoomed at f/11 and less than 1mm at 8.25cm with two diopters

So the area in focus is really shallow and not suited to tridimensional images where the subject is not flat on your screen

One of the tricks...shared among most cameras...is shooting in video mode. Once you spot a great photo you press your shutter.

Yes it works well for stills but you need to have peaking ON. Without peaking is painful especially the focus magnifier is a waste of time

When you say "focus magnifier is a waste of time", are you talking about the MF Assist feature of the camera (where the image on the screen is magnified for 2sec)? I was playing with that feature yesterday and couldn't figure how to use it, esp. since there's no peaking in the magnified image.

 

When you say "focus magnifier is a waste of time", are you talking about the MF Assist feature of the camera (where the image on the screen is magnified for 2sec)? I was playing with that feature yesterday and couldn't figure how to use it, esp. since there's no peaking in the magnified image.

Yes that feature is useless in my opinion

I have an old canon where it is very effective but on the rx100 peaking works best