Digital Rebel and Infinity Focus

[davidcancilla]

I want to do night time shots with long exposures on my Digital Rebel

but I'm having trouble finding infinity focus. It's too dark to use

the viewfinder to manual focus and the autofocus assist from the

flash rarely works. Is there some trick or feature in manual mode to

help me? I'm using the bundled 18-55 canon esf lens.

[k._rivkin]

The main trick is to buy another lens :).

 

The supplemental one is to instead of focusing on sea, or air to focus on some tree far away.

[jbq]

Autofocus assist (obviously) isn't gonna help for infinity focus.

 

Even in the "worst" case (wide open at the long end) if you can focus on an object 150 ft away you'll have decent sharpness at infinity.

 

Any chance that you can use the moon for infinity focusing?

[davidcancilla]

Focus on the moon! Great idea!

I'll try that tonight. Very simple and it will give me time to experiment before I can get my hands on a new zoom lens.

Thanks

[wakeforce]

or you can just point your focus on an very far bright lamp (like a streetlamp)

 

It should be able to help you focus

[melissa_eiselein]

Try setting the camera to manual and twisting the focus adjustment all the way to the left. That's where the infinity symbol is on my 17-35 and my 70-200. That's the same setting I used when I shot my fireworks pictures back in July.