Walt C

Steve Perry has an informative ebook on focusing for Nikon cameras.
Check his site

JimRPhoto Loc: Raleigh NC

Sergei, you have lots of good replies already. I have a Canon (EOS) 5D Mark ii, and I also wanted to have a better way to use manual focus. Canon, and other after-market vendors, have focus screens. My model Canon has a removable focus screen. However, the caution. My local camera store ordered one for me with a split ring, the old style focusing aid that you and I have used, and it worked fine on the older, manual focus lenses (which I use with an adapter). But the focus screen would not work at all with current lenses. In fact, the photos using the modern lenses came out, out-of-focus. So if you want to try this out, suggest that wherever you buy it, it is returnable. Good luck with this! JimR

dragoncello

Add me as another person with praise for focus peaking, in my case with an Olympus mirrorless. I assume other manufacturers also have this option, but in addition to focus peaking, with Olympus, you can add a "magnify" option through the menu. I abandoned my Canon dslr a few years ago when I developed an epi-retinal wrinkle in my dominant eye (a wrinkle in the tissue in front of the retina). Bifocal vision compensates for this, but this had made it impossible to focus manually through the view finder. Olympus's manual focusing is quite accurate, but when I need to adjust focus, I just rotate the focus ring and both the LCD screen and the electronic view finder show a zoomed in enlargement with the edges of objects in the focus area outlined (peaked) in red or some other color you may have chosen. As you change the focus with the focus ring, the red outline shifts to show you the area in focus. Given my current vision, no way I could do this without this technical assistance. I used it just a couple of days ago, for example, in a museum where I was photographing a pre-Columbian mask that was inside a glass case. The camera wanted to focus on the glass case, and it was a simple matter of a second or two to shift the focus to the object itself. I was even able to nail the focus on the mask's closer eye. If you're not familiar with it, this is a remarkable technological aid, and because it's so easy, I'm surprised at how often I use it.

Kuzano

That is the function called "focus peaking" in live view on camera's that have the option. I mistakenly often spell it as "focus peeking". It is the highlight that appears in Live View when focus reaches it's "peak". Someone asked me before in this post what camera's have focus peaking. I can't tell you that. It's a camera feature to be noted in the specs of your camera. I know most current Olympus and Fujifilm, and Sony mirrorless have focus peaking.

I generally go to Youtube and do a search for Focus Peaking on (my model) camera. I think all focus peaking takes place in EVF camera's with Live View. However don't quote me on that. I just know, I won't buy any camera that does not have focus peaking for MF legacy lenses. It can be use on OEM AF lenses as well.

I believe that Fuji, Olympus and Sony allow you to choose a color for the fringe of focus that occurs in focus peaking. Whatever works best for your vision.

Kuzano

Love my T90's (The Tank) last Canon with program features and still using Canon FD manual focus lenses. Predecessor to the EOS switch. I know a fellow in Carson City NV that rebuilds the Tank, and cleans the magnets that cause the EEE error. Have had him do three for me.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

For that, my friend, you have to go to an EVF, which means MIRRORLESS! Perhaps the next generation of Nikons will finally "cave" to the future.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Yes you can choose red white or blue. Depending on the background color, you can immediately choose the color which gives you the best contrast. For landscapes. red works best and for all the rest I find blue is best. You can also choose the intensity. High intensity fringing is quicker but less precise.
A really great trick with the Fuji is to shoot B&W. You will see B&W in the EVF but the fringes will still be in color. Shooting raw+jpeg, your raw image will be in color with really good focus, and you can convert it in camera to a jpg with any changes you want to make, right in camera. Fuji has put some really cool stuff in their cameras!

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

I have a camera in the Rebel series (650D), so it may be similar. There is a button on the upper right side of the back that magnifies the image on your live shooting screen. Assuming you are shooting a stationary view (or your plane of focus is stationary), go to the live view mode and use the screen to focus. Press the magnifier button and it will magnify the center of the image--press again to magnify more. Then turn the focusing ring on the lens back and forth and find the plane that you want most sharp. Use a small enough f-stop to assure everything you want is in focus--don't worry about refraction unless you stop down smaller than f16 for most views, though f11 is an ideal limit with the small format. Using this focusing method, you might even consider using the camera on a tripod and using a loupe--the hand-held magnifier we used on the ground glass of a large format camera to get sharpest focus.

Another method, if there is action in the picture, is what the press men did with 4x5 press cameras. They marked key points on the focusing apparatus (in your case, the lens focusing ring) with something you can later remove. 5 ft, 8ft, 15 ft are close enough if you use small apertures, and infinity is already on the lens. Of course, you can use the distances that suit you.

If you want to do what auto focus does, you can't do it manually--your shooting style must go back to the limits of old if you don't use auto-focus. But they approximated auto-focus within limits. Many very nice cameras had close, medium, and far settings--and that was it. They had a setting for cloudy or sunny, controlling aperture. They simply could not be more exact on focus or aperture. The saving grace is that slow work had its own rewards--the more carefully we work, the greater our chances for better results. Speed is a virtue, but is no substitute for quality results. If you cannot get the camera to accommodate the scene, accommodate the scene to the camera, as Mohammed would say. If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain.) In other words, choose a different shot, one that suits your camera.

I wonder what you meant when you said the auto-focus in your Rebel started giving you a hard time?

bapsey

Sony mirrorless cameras have focus peaking in manual mode it works fine on my Nikon 500 mm mirror lens

throughrhettseyes Loc: Rowlett, TX

Buy a Nikon it has Focus Recognition. Also you might clean you contact on the lens and the camera. Sometimes it's just dirty contacts especially if that is the only lens acting up.

jonfrei

That’s about the least helpful advice I have seen anyone on this forum give.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Many modern mirrorless cameras have focus “shimmer” and focus magnifiers that can be activated when focusing manually. Their bright, contrasty electronic viewfinders are MUCH easier to see in dim light than optical viewfinders.

Jeffcs Loc: Myrtle Beach South Carolina

Sir please revisit your source of “prisms” functions

The prism has nothing to do with the screen also you do not need a removable prism to change the focusing screen on some cameras

sergei

Wow! I did not expect that my humble question will cause such a discussion! Thank all respondents very much! Especially with such an obsolete topic as manual focusing.
There were several question to me, so I will try to answer.
- Full title of my camera is Canon Rebel XT EOS 350D
- I use 2 lenses and both have same problem, so its camera, not lenses
- How do I know its AF problem? Simple, I have in the viewfinder AF confirmation light continuously blinking and camera refused to shut. What could that be if not AF? Aliens?
There were a lot of recommendation, advices and tips, for all of which I am very grateful. Some of them (for example "change the focusing screen" or "use different lenses with adapters") are just too complicated for me, I am not that advanced.
Others like zooming in view in VF while focusing, or using the "live screen", "focus peaking" or some "little DOTs " as focus confirmation looks OK, but I do not know if these options are available in my camera and/or how to activate them. Did not find anything in the manual.
Another bunch of advises are about camera repair. Again, thank you for all your advises, but I am not going to repair my camera. For two reasons. First: it does not makes sense to invest any money into 10 year old Rebel with 8 mp and LCD monitor so small I have problem to read it. And the second reason... be prepared ... maestro, drums! Yesterday was on party and took my camera with me trying to practice MF. And guess what? When I tried AF mode, just in case, it worked perfectly well! So, I have no idea why it stopped worked as well as I have no idea why it started working again, but I am happy.
And the last, even such an old cynical goat like me was really touched to see haw many people came to his help! Thank you again and again!

dreamon

Amen!