Displaying Focus Points

Hello, I was wondering if the ability to display focus points is buried in PL somewhere or on the to do list.
After taking over a 1000 photo’s on a recent holiday, mostly of fast moving and small birds, I need to quickly cull out photo’s where my camera missed focus. Being able to quickly see if the focus point was on the bird or the branch behind the bird or missed completely, would be very very helpful.

Thanks
Aaron

Unless your image is very static and you didn’t recompose you can’t rely on that info. Special not in fast moving birds.

George

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Hello George, thanks for the reply. The benefit for me is purely in the culling stage. Rather than having to load and zoom into each of the photos to check where the focal plane ended up being, (typically desired on the eye of the bird,) if the focus point square is not on the eye of the bird, or very near it, I can immediately mark the photo in PL to discard and move on. Any small improvement to speed up the work flow, is appreciated and adds up over thousands of photos. The data is definitely contained in the raw file as Canons own software(free) can display what the chosen focus point was. Hopefully it’s on there to do list.

Kind regards

Aaron

Hello,
I’ve voted for Focus points and we have discussed it also in Displaying AF Point, and it would be nice if it would give a function like in the Nikon Capture software.
A few month’s ago I’ve got photos from my nephew taken with Nikon equipment, an he was asking me why the photos aren’t sahrp. No chance in DXO to see where the focus point was by taking the photo.
So I have to install Capture NX-D to got this information.
So I understand the request by azkaz

Best regards

guenter

The problem with focus info in exif data is the not all cameras provide it and, when they do, it can be quite confusing. See this page from Phil Harvey’s excellent ExifTool documentation for the Nikon.

Even using Nikon’s own NX-D software, if nothing is in focus, it doesn’t show which point was being used to attempt to focus.

I prefer actual focal plane info (already in DxO’s backlog) vs. knowing the camera’s focus points before the shutter was pressed, which after a recompose or a focusing error won’t tell me what’s in sharpest focus.

3 Likes

I would also like the ability to see the focus point. Doesn’t have to universal if some exif from cameras doesn’t support it.

I think the value of seeing the focus points is overestimated. They’re wrong when recomposing after focusing but can also be wrong when using af-c.

George

2 Likes

Your comment above piqued my interest, Ziggy … I guess it’s directed at Sony a7 cameras(?)
I found reference to this tool here - which led to a download site here.

I haven’t downloaded/tried it yet - Can you please tell us a bit more about it … Is the interface in English ?

John M

Thanks for this tip, Ziggy … It’s a handy little utility (for perusing EXIF data from Sony RAW/ARW files).

John M

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Hy,
Why are focuspoints it self that interresant?

I understand edge detection, general focus aka sharpnes. Shows the DoF.
I understand detail detection. A sort of fine edgedetection. Showes the focus area.
But camera’s focus ponits are only relayable if you took it steady as in trypod.
Small change in aiming after focus lock can fool your afterview of that.

A edge detection which you can alter how stricked,point of end of DoF will be for your preference and a detailed edge detection for the focalplane detection is rather my feature i like.

2 Likes

All those other forms of focus detection and indication would be great! Hopefully they come in time. For those with cameras that contain that information and for those who find it beneficial, grabbing and displaying focus points used would seem to be “low hanging fruit”. Simply displaying existing information contained in the image data. No programming required, no processing required, no slow down to displaying the image etc.
:+1:

Maybe you can try FastRawViewer for culling. They have such function (Check In-Focus Areas and Noise in Shadows). I have no expericence with it.

Hi Jon, thanks for the suggestion! I actually do have FastRaw Viewer and it is excellent! I would definitely recommend it. It would be great to have the FR features in PL also!

Kind regards
Aaron

The FastRawViewer does not provide any information about where focus should be (i.e. which focus points were active). The focus detection just tells you where the focus is. I’ve had quite an exchange with the FastRawViewer developer about providing focus points. Unfortunately Iliah Borg is categorically against including focus point information in FRV.

I’ve voted but my vote is a soft one as I would expect to handle focus evaluation while doing triage. Triage in Photolab is not realistic for sports photography. Moving between images takes several seconds.

For those who want focus points, you need to realise that it is not a simple thing at all.

Some camera manufacturers provide the metadata, some don’t, and it varies from model to model.

If you look at the specifications just for Nikon, you get some idea of the complexity of it. And that info then has to be translated into pixel coordinates, which presumably Nikon know but I can’t yet find.

What a fascinating document, Joanna! Thanks for sharing. As a Nikon shooter who photographs quite a bit of European football, so I’m very interested in Nikon autofocus. ApolloOne does show these focus points (seem correct to me) so there is a way in. Perhaps you could contact ApolloOne developer Albert Shan. He’s got an account over at DPReview and is very friendly.

Hello,
in my opinion sometimes it would be a good assistance like I described here Displaying Focus Points - #4 by Guenterm

And yes the most time I know where I have put the focus point, but with moving objects for example Kajaks in rough water I sometimes wonder where the focus point was when the shutter was released.

With my Olympus I can see the focus points also in the Only software

But it’s really a not often needed feature

Have fun

1 Like