What's all the fuss about focus? <or> Hocus Focus !?!

[klycea@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Adam-HALPID Klyce)]

     To all,
     
     I have been reading with interest, the recent discussions about
     focussing with infrared film, and I just wanted to say that I 
     think we should emphasize this aspect of IR a little less to 
     people who are just trying this film out for the first time.
     
     My reasons for saying this are:
     
        1.) It seems that most people use IR, at the least B&W, for
     landscape and when doing landscape work most people usually use
     the hyperfocal distance for focussing their lenses - the small
     IR focus shift is inconsequential in this case (at least in my
     experience.)
        2.) When you first try HIE, especially, but Konica's 750nm 
     emulsion too, usually you're lucky if you can see through your
     negatives, much less get the murky shapes to be in focus. I 
     think that from an educators standpoint, it would make sense to 
     counsel people on exposure with slighly less emphasis on the
     focus shift= too much instruction at one time just causes
     confusion and frustration.
        3.) The very slight (generally) focus shift required to get
     sharp (whatever that means with B&W IR) images seems to be most
     appropriate where you are doing critical work, close up work
     or trying to use depth of field as a compositional technique.
     These are, of course, all valid uses of IR film, but when you
     are just starting out with something it's usually best not to
     try and capture all the nuances at once.
     
     Anyway, these have just been the pathetic musings of a luntic,
     I know, but I wanted to present them to you all, not to cause a 
     flame war between the focus-shifters and the soft-image-pinko-
     commies, but to let IR beginners see that while their lenses may 
     have red dots - you really need not use them right away. If your 
     lens does not have a red dot, you really don't need to get the
     red pen and the ruler out just yet.
     
     -Adam Klyce

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Topic No. 4