Digital Photography Instruction Support Pages - Steve Gandy Photography

 

Focus Settings

Focused Image Example

 

The main 4 areas to know about focus are Auto/Manual, Modes, Point Selection, and Point Settings.

  • Auto vs. Manual, seems like an obvious choice but it can be easier to do it Manually. Auto focus will fail about 20% of the time.

  • Continuous, Single, and Dynamic choices
    • CANON:
      • One Shot: for still subjects, press half-way a single focus function
      • AI Servo: for moving subjects, press half-way and it continues to change its focus, jumps to different focus points and tries to follow the moving subject
      • AI Focus: just like one shot for still subjects but if the subject moves it jumps to AI Servo mode. Tries to good at everything but can actually just fail more often
      • Manual: controlled on lens button usually
    • NIKON
      • Single: for still subjects, press half-way a single focus function
      • Continuous: for moving subjects, press half-way and it continues to change its focus, predicts location of subject, jumps to different focus points and tries to follow the moving subject
      • Auto: just like one shot for still subjects but if the subject moves it jumps to AI Servo mode. Tries to good at everything but can actually just fail more often
      • Manual: can be controlled by lens button usually. Some cameras have a switch on the body.
  • Area Modes
      • Full Auto - Focus point jumps around a lot
      • Single Point - You can move the point, center is usually the "best"
      • Groups - has the camera look at a bigger area than the point
      • Face Detect and other new features are sometimes useful.
  • Other Considerations