18. April 2012 · Comments Off on Focus · Categories: Technique · Tags: ,

I’ve been told that when using iron sights, you line up the front and back sights and focus on the one out front so that the back ones get out of focus. Intellectually I understood the intent of this, but for me personally, I didn’t see this working. Without a natural, flexible lens, I don’t have many focus points available. On the one hand, the world does not look blurry to me, but it would be impossible to tell if it were relatively so.

To a beginner, it may seem like too many things are going on at the same time. You’re trying to hold your arms steady, keep a certain stance, line up the sights, and watch your breathing. Some people can walk and chew gum at the same time, others can’t.  It often feels like some aspect of what I’m doing suffers as I focus on another specific thing. Sometimes it all comes together, but not until I’ve put a few bullets downrange that one session.

So there I was, staring at the bright, beautiful stock sights on my PPS, trying to keep these huge, bright white dots lined up, when suddenly the rear sights went blurry.

Wow.

It works.

I’m still not entirely sure how this can be, but I have a suspicion. I suspect that I can flex my eyes to some extent through changing the distance at which they cross. My weak right eye is contributing a little something and helping me find a bit of depth. That day, everything just clicked into place and my focus was spot on.

To most people, this is entirely trivial, but for me, it’s amazing.