Zone focusing allows you to preset your camera’s focus and aperture, enabling you to take multiple shots without adjusting the focus. This way, it´s possible to shoot more pictures in the street without making a precise focus adjustment each time. It demands you compose well when all elements are sharp because with this method, we operate with a greater depth of field (DOF).
Selecting the best lenses for zone focusing
Shorter lenses (35mm – 50mm or less): These lenses have a greater depth of field, making them ideal for zone focusing.
Wider lenses: I prefer the look of 24 – 35mm lenses, as they are useful for street photography, including larger scenes.
Manual Lenses Manual lenses are easiest for zone focusing because they have distance scales, unlike most autofocus lenses.
How to preset manual lenses
Focus on something about one-third of the distance from the nearest to the farthest point in your desired zone.
Then set your aperture:
You might want a zone from 1 meter (3 feet) to 4 meters (12 feet) with a 35mm lens at f/16. Focus at 2 meters (6 feet), which is about one-third of the way. This way, you have a good zone that is within focus.
Pre-setting autofocus lenses is done this way:
Set your camera to manual focus.
Next, simply follow the same steps as for manual lenses.
On some lenses, there are marks you can use to determine the focus area within a certain distance.
The key is setting the infinity symbol over a selected aperture mark, making it an easy way to set focus at the hyperfocal distance, which is 8.4 feet for any 35mm lens at f/16. On a 28mm lens, you will have a wider area in focus, and on a 50mm lens, it will be narrower.
When framing, the near and far subjects won’t be in the center because the composition and framing logically want to separate the objects so they do not cover each other.
Depending on the quality of the lens used, an object placed a the edge of the frame and not in the center may seem softer or a bit out of focus if the lens can’t render it sharply in this position of the frame. This is purely a matter of glass and lens quality.
Using the Depth of Field Scales on Manual Lenses
Here are three examples of setting the manual lens according to the depth of field scales on manual lenses where this is shown
