C1 4.7 Pro Tip: Checking Focus Mid-Burst

April 3, 2009 | Tips & Tech

The Problem: When shooting at the maximum speed of a Phase One digital back or Canon/Nikon dSLR the 100% focus window may never fully resolve, making it impossible to check the focus of images as they come in.

Capture One 4.7 Pro includes several ways to check focus in the middle of a stream of images.

Method 1

Set [Camera > Auto Select New Capture > Never]. New images will still be captured and placed in the thumbnail list; however, the program will not automatically select the new image which gives you the flexibility to select images and check their focus at your own pace.

Method 2

Set [Camera > Auto Select New Capture > Immediately]. When a new image is captured it will be immediatly displayed. This creates a steady “stream” of images on the screen during heavy shooting. To check the focus of a particular image press the Return (a.k.a. “Enter”) key. The currently selected image (denoted by a while border) will become a “compare variant” (denoted by a yellow border) which will remain on the screen even as the next image in the stream is selected. You can either zoom in on that image, or use “Window > Viewer” to bring up a separate view of the two images so that both the focus-check view and the zoom-to-fit vew are shown. This later method requires considerable computer power and is best done on a fast 8-core tower fully optomized for speed.

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