Camera Labs

Just a quick question to those more experienced with advanced settings...
Is there an easy(ish) way to get this camera to reliably focus at infinity without going the trial-and-error route?

The reason I ask this:
I recently started into astrophotography, andd I'm having a bit of difficulty getting my H5 to focus at infinity, manually or otherwise. The Moon is no problem - autofocus works just fine - but trying for some of the brighter planets (Venus, Jupiter) leaves it either hunting or significantly off-focus.

Thanks in advance!
Floyd.

It's been a few years since I've had my H5, however I remember that it had a manual focus mode that I used when I was shooting low light or night sky photography and needed infinity focus. The focus selection button on top should give you that option, then you use the control pad to move the on-screen focus bar over to infinity. Remember that sometimes true infinity focus is actually just a hair back from the farthest setting - many cameras actually adjust focus a bit 'beyond' infinity. Without a way to magnify the screen, it may be hard to determine accurate focus, but that should get you pretty close. If you can find a star that's brighter, the H5 has a 'peaking' function in MF mode which will highlight the areas in blue that are in focus to help you get it right. In manual focus mode, you can always find a larger object like the moon to focus on, then recompose and meter off of the area you intend to shoot - the manual focus will stay where you set it so you don't get all the hunting around trying to AF.

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Justin Miller
Sony DSLR-A580 / Sony 18-250mm / Minolta 50mm F1.7 / Sigma 30mm F1.4 / Tamron 10-24mm / Tamron 200-500mm / Tamron 90mm F2.8 macro / Minolta 300mm F4 APO
Sony NEX5N / 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 / 55-210mm F4-6.3 / Pentax K adapter / Konica K/AR adapter / bunches o' Konica & Pentax lenses!

Galleries:
http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

You can AF on streetlight in the distance, that works the same;)

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Ruben

Panasonic DMC-FZ18, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, Canon G5, Canon 350D, Canon 50D + BG-E2N
Tamron 17-50 2.8, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM,
Canon 18-55 II plus lots of Minolta MD/M42 lenses and bodies

Thanks, guys - that's pretty much what I've been doing.
I was hoping that there was a setting like my Oly E510 has where you can hit a separate button to get a one-shot auto then it reverts to manual.

I guess that it really isn't so bad to spend a few minutes at the beginning of a session fine-tuning the focus. <shrug>

BTW - Exactly how far away would something need to be to be considered at "infinity" for focus purposees?

Floyd.