A method of determining the presence of an object in a monitored zone or in a part of a monitored zone to be monitored, comprising an optoelectronic sensor which works in accordance with the triangulation principle, in which - light pulses of a first transmitted light source (D 1) are transmitted in the direction of a monitored space; - light pulses which are widened are transmitted by a second transmitted light source in a switched-on state in the direction of the monitored space offset in time, in particular alternately, to the light pulses of the first light source; - on the presence of an object, light reflected or remitted thereby is received by a receiver element arrangement, wherein the receiver element arrangement comprises a near zone part having at least one reception element and a far zone part having at least one reception element; - signals of receiver elements (N 1,... N j) of the near zone part or signals derived therefrom are multiplied by a factor having a first sign and signals of receiver elements (F 1,... F j) of the far zone part or signals derived therefrom are multiplied by a factor having the opposite sign in a multiplication step and are added in an addition step; - the resulting sum signal or a signal derived therefrom is compared with a threshold value and the resulting comparison result signal (k) is subjected to a multibit processing with a multibit depth N of at least two whose output signal does not follow changes in the comparison result signal (k) immediately, but only when the deviating comparison result signal is still present after a number of sampling cycles which corresponds to the multibit depth, wherein the output signal of the multibit processing is used as a presence signal (q) to detect the presence of an object in a near zone which is formed by a zone of the monitored space which is closer to the sensor than a far zone or to detect the presence of an object in a far zone which is formed by a zone of the monitored space which is further remote from the sensor than a near zone; and - in a weighting step, signals which are received by the receiver element arrangement during light pulses of the first transmitted light source are weighted by a first weighting factor and signals which are received by the receiver element arrangement during light pulses of the second transmitted light source are weighted by a second weighting factor differing from the first weighting factor, wherein - the sum signal present after the addition step is sampled and the arising sampled signal is compared with the threshold value after the weighting step; and - on a change of a relationship between the presence signal (q) after the multibit processing and the comparison result signal (k), the operating state of the second transmitted light source is changed. - light pulses of a first transmitted light source (D 1) are transmitted in the direction of a monitored space; - light pulses which are widened are transmitted by a second transmitted light source in a switched-on state in the direction of the monitored space offset in time, in particular alternately, to the light pulses of the first light source; - on the presence of an object, light reflected or remitted thereby is received by a receiver element arrangement, wherein the receiver element arrangement comprises a near zone part having at least one reception element and a far zone part having at least one reception element; - signals of receiver elements (N 1,... N j) of the near zone part or signals derived therefrom are multiplied by a factor having a first sign and signals of receiver elements (F 1,... F j) of the far zone part or signals derived therefrom are multiplied by a factor having the opposite sign in a multiplication step and are added in an addition step; - the resulting sum signal or a signal derived therefrom is compared with a threshold value and the resulting comparison result signal (k) is subjected to a multibit processing with a multibit depth N of at least two whose output signal does not follow changes in the comparison result signal (k) immediately, but only when the deviating comparison result signal is still present after a number of sampling cycles which corresponds to the multibit depth, wherein the output signal of the multibit processing is used as a presence signal (q) to detect the presence of an object in a near zone which is formed by a zone of the monitored space which is closer to the sensor than a far zone or to detect the presence of an object in a far zone which is formed by a zone of the monitored space which is further remote from the sensor than a near zone; and - in a weighting step, signals which are received by the receiver element arrangement during light pulses of the first transmitted light source are weighted by a first weighting factor and signals which are received by the receiver element arrangement during light pulses of the second transmitted light source are weighted by a second weighting factor differing from the first weighting factor, - the sum signal present after the addition step is sampled and the arising sampled signal is compared with the threshold value after the weighting step; and - on a change of a relationship between the presence signal (q) after the multibit processing and the comparison result signal (k), the operating state of the second transmitted light source is changed.