Zone Focusing — Simplified

Focus on a point a comfortable distance away (example: six feet) and lock the camera in manual mode.

In street photography, great shots are made or missed in fractions of a second. The techniques we use allows luck to favor best when prepared.

Autofocus is great, manual focus can offer powerful control, but what if you want to change the game a little bit. Try something new that can offer the best of both worlds.

Enter, Zone Focusing and below I will try my best to explain…

Think of your “focal plane”, like a carrot on a stick. As you move forward, the carrot moves forward equally. The same concept applies to establishing a focal plane. As you move forward, your focal plane moves too and expands in depth, depending on your chosen f/stop (f/1.8 will be shallow and f/11 will be deep).

For instance, to capture the puzzled person in the graphic above, all you have to do, is walk forward.

This approach will force you to think about your scene differently, but with change comes inspiration… and wouldn’t it be nice to sometimes forego slow auto-focus (or mis-focus), or the potential failure of a blown manual focus?

Advice for those who need a physical measurement to establish real-time spacial accuracy… then look no further than the sidewalk at your feet.

On a common city block, most concrete slabs will be constructed under the same guidelines as the next. With this in mind, you can simply establish the distance of your focal plane, set it and use the sidewalk to measure you subject.

If the focal plane is set to focus on an object 2 slabs away, and your subject is three slabs away… Just step forward and fire.

Additionally, on most cameras, you still have quick access to autofocusing using “back-button focus” (often reflected as “AF-L”).

It will take some getting used to, but will make a powerful tool in the technique toolbox.

Now get out there and capture the street.