Focus Point Plug-in

[#1]

I would like to see the Focus Point in my photos in LR and my understanding is that the only option is to install a plug in (this one? https://github.com/musselwhizzle/Focus-Points).

I'm weary of thrid-party additions and I am not sure it will work for me. Can someone advice?

Camera: Olympus OM-D EM1-MkII

Computer MacBook Pro (alsmost new) with latest Catalina OS upgrade.

Thanks

[#2]

Only via plugin, and the plugins are limited in what cameras are supported.

[#3]

If you are not trusting of that one, you can try this one:

http://lightroomfocuspointsplugin.com/

This is the one I have installed on my win10 box.

[#4]

Actually, I am not sure these plug-ins provide what I was looking for. If I understand, they reveal which of the "focus areas" defined in the camera has been "hit" in the photo. But take the example of a bird in a tree. You may have severa objects within an area at different distances; the bird may appear less sharp that you would expect, and it may be hard to figure out if it is due to movement, camera vibration or simply because instead of the bird you ended up focussing on the foliage. Sometimes it is obvious what happened but others is not. Also, this seems to be an information stored as metadata, but I thought that there are programs that can detect that are in the photoc that looks the sharpest. I say this because in FB sharing pages sometimes and expert tells you "the problem with that photo is that the focus is on X instead of Y". I was wondering if they were using some focus-detection software, but I guess it is just  good eyes and experience.

[#5]

Sorry: "that can detect the area in the photoc that looks the sharpest"

[#6 · Accepted solution]

The only thing that can possibly be in metadata is the camera's record of where it put the focus points. And keep in mind that any camera's autofocus will miss quite frequently.

As for someone saying "this is in focus and that is not", that's just good eyes and experience.

You can of course use filters in Photoshop (like e.g. high pass or find edges) to exaggerate high frequency detail and visually determine what looks sharpest. But zooming in to 1:1 is just as reliable. With modern high resolution sensors (36 - 60 MP), the plane of critical focus can be paper thin, even with wide angle lenses. The term "depth of field" doesn't really apply anymore: it's either in focus, or not. So very often you simply have to decide when it's enough in focus.

Mirrorless systems have an advantage here: autofocus is measured directly off the sensor, not indirectly by a separate phase detection sensor. So no fine-tuning for each lens is necessary, and it's usually more accurate with a higher hit rate.

[#7]

Thank you for your instructive response.