Christopher Berti

Hard: Stanley FatMax hands down. 

Soft: I don't own one but most AC's use it, Keson 50ft fiberglass measuring tape

I focus almost completely by monitor. We shoot at such high resolution with such a narrow depth of field that it's virtually impossible to focus by distance.

That being said I still carry and use hard, cloth and laser measures to check marks and to find matching frames for coverage.

Personally, I wouldn't use a leather tape measure because you can't get them wet. And you have to replace soft tapes every couple years when they stretch anyway so why bother spending a lot of money on one.