Red on the Vivitar 35es - and focus issues ;)

[Andre Reinders]

Taken at our local 'Heritage Park' last weekend while out with the kids (letting mom sleep). Vivitar 35 ES Rangefinder, Konica Centuria 100 film.

I learned something about this camera - and maybe all cameras. (You experts can help out I'm sure)

The focus scale has the last 2 marks as 15 feet and infinity. So what do I do? I look at something and say 'aw...that's like 50 feet away, let's just turn the focus dial to the end." Well all those photos are blurry - I am guessing that I focussed 'past infinity' (I think I read that somewhere before....)

I guess I need to focus on 'everything' regardless of how far away it is - or I need to get the camera fixed.

As you can see by this example, anything closer than 15 feet - which I chose to actually focus on - was sharp. HMPF.

[melek]

The low contrast and diffusion of the image in the top center of the shot makes me think that there is some type of obstruction on the lens: haze, fungus, scratches.

[Graham Serretta]

Andre' - this type of camera relies on deph of field to give results that appear to be "in focus", as you know.  Generally, with 200iso film, the 15 feet setting should give sharp focus from about 6.5 ft to infinity, and the infinity setting from 11 ft to infinity, presuming that the aperture it is using is f16.  If objects at 50 ft are not in focus at either setting, than the lens needs to be colomated, or the lens assembly checked for a fault.

[Andre Reinders]

I guess what I was trying to get at, is that the lens will focus past infinity. I did a quick google on this, and it seems that lenses focus past infinity to allow for temperature variation and other reasons.

This thread had a little discussion: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=001NWU

I will take a question from there as my own "OK, so how do I focus on infinity? At the infinity mark? At the end of the focus ring's travel?"

As I mentioned before, when I use the viewfinder to focus on closer objects, the photos seem to me to be in focus. Just with this last roll of film I took a number of 'distance' shots, and they were all our of focus. I did not use the viewfinder to focus, but simply turned the focus ring until it wouldn't go any farther.

I am not sure if this is by design- or if it is a problem with the camera. Me thinks I will have to run through another roll and use the viewfinder for focussing on distant subjects - and also see where the ring lines up.

[ImageMaker]

If nothing closer than the horizon is in better focus than horizon objects, then "past infinity" is exactly what you're getting.  With a lens that short, you shouldn't need compensation for temperature; the widest range of conditions *you* can operate in won't result in out-of-DOF images from that type of camera if the lens is correctly collimated.

I'm guessing the camera's been dropped and the lens is out of kilter or the infinity stop is bent/broken, if you are indeed focusing past infinity.  If that's a relatively simple camera, as I suspect it is, it's probably not worth paying to have repaired...