Nikon cameras stores the focus point that was in focus and the exposure was taken. This would be extremely valuable to see for a sports/action/wildlife photographer.
Focus points not useful if you focus and then move to compose your shot. Far better would be image analysis showing what's in/out focus and by how much.
Though you of course have a point, I do not agree with you statement that this is not a useful feature.
I totally agree on your point with the image analysis.
I am using a Canon EOS 1D X with 61 focus points spread over most of the frame. Hence, I Compose my shot/frame and then select the correct focus point for the shot. Depending on the scene, using the method "focusing/reframing" can throw the subject out of focus.
The method suggest by me to ensure perfect sharpness of course is only ideal with cameras with sufficiant focus points spread across the frame. But, most new pro and semi-pro cameras have sufficient focus points to easily accommodate this work-flow.
Focusing and then reframing is a popular way to work, but not the optimal if you want to make sure to have pin-point-focus. IMHO showing focus points is hence very essential; I think that it is an extremely annoying omission by Adobe and do not understand why they do not implement this feature.
Concerning the focus-point-plugin mentioned in another post: I personally find the plugin way too slow and cumbersome - but it shows that it is doable and it is nice that somebody has spend his time making this available.
As already mentioned by another member prior in this thread, Aperture did this and Canon and Nikon's prorpriatory software shows the focus points as well.
Adobe, wake up!
Didn't Bridge use to show the focus points (six years back or so)?
Have a fantastic day and good luck with your photography.
I would like to see focusing points in Lightroom and not a plug in!. This thread started 6 years ago and it is not addressed. It is basic photography information which would make my initial sort of images much much easier and faster. Thanks.
Focus point information is proprietary information unique to each camera manufacturer and therefore probably not something that Adobe is able to provide support for. However, the forum where feature requests will most likely be considered can be found here:
I doubt Adobe will include this feature and I don't see any usefulness in it but you could use the camera supplied software of if you have a supported camera download this free plugin to do this in Lightroom. If you do let us know how well it works. Show Focus Points Plugin for Lightroom
I agree with what you said, however, if you know where you were attempting to focus and did not recompose, it is a good tool to confirm your work, so in the end it is how you intend to make use of it.
I find that use of several plugins to show focus points and to apply a focus mask in Lightroom a very handy tool and wish that it was part of Lightroom since the focus point used is easily obtained from EXIF.
Of course, it would only show WHAT focus point was used, not necessarily where focus actually was achieved, but that could easily be added as an option as well, since there are 3rd party plugins that do that quickly and easily as well.
Be nice if both the focus point used and the focus masking would just be a keystroke, built into ACR/Lightroom.
This was built into Aperture 1.0. So was the ability to customize keyboard shortcuts. I can't believe that TWELVE YEARS LATER Lightroom still doesn't have these. Another sign that Adobe puts software engineers ahead of photographers in its product design.
Show Focus Points in Library Mode: There is a 6-year old thread that talks about Lr showing focus points. I think it would be very useful to be able to toggle on and off the location of focus - for focus stacking or choosing among similar photographs. I use a plug in called Show Focus Points, but just seeing the focus points in Library view would be much more convenient. Thanks for considering this.
I also use Show Focus Points - but also am starting to use Focus Mask, which shows what is in focus instead of what focus point the camera used. Helpful if you focused and recomposed.
This looks great. Unfortunately, it's LR only, and I use CR. So I still want something like this from Adobe because they keep LR and CR in sync—basically.
After purchasing LR a few days ago, I was surprised and disappointed to learn that it was not able to display the camera focus point(s) on my RAW images. I do bird photography, and found this very useful while using Aperture and Canon's DPP for editing. I encourage Adobe to add this to LR.
AS mentioned in a few earlier posts the use of Show Focus Points plug seems to meet many needs and maybe helpful here. Take a look at http://www.lightroomfocuspointsplugin.com
I have used this plugin for quite some time now, and it can indeed come in handy, but it shows what focus point was selected and used by the camera (pretty much what any will do) If you focus, then recompose then of course the focus point is not necessarily what is in focus - I have also added the focusmask plugin to Lightroom from CaptureMonkey, which ends up showing what in the image is in focus, not just what point was used.
Focus points are very valuable to show, especially since most DSLRs and all mirrorless options (Nikon Z series) support a dense grid of focus points meaning the "Centre focus and recompose" style of shooting is being used less and less and will almost entirely disappear as mirrorless overtakes DSLRs.
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