Focus Introduction

Focus

Understanding how your camera’s focusing system works and what options are available will allow you to take control of the focus rather than rely on a camera’s default autofocus settings. Most cameras out-of-the-box are by default in a mode that is called auto select where the camera tries to decide what the subject is and where to set the focus. Small boxes or lighted focus points will pop up all over the viewfinder showing where the camera is focusing. This may or may not be the focus point that you wanted which can make the intended subject out of focus and lead to frustration .

Today most cameras are equipped with several different focus modes for various situations. It is one thing to photograph a still subject such as a portrait, and another to photograph a running person or a bird in flight. When photographing still subjects, you generally acquire focus once and take a picture. If the subject moves, you reacquire focus again and take another picture. But if you have a subject that is continuously moving, you need your camera to readjust focus automatically as you take pictures. The good news is that your camera has the built-in functionality to handle these situations. In this section we will go over the focus modes in more detail.

When you are taking a picture of only one subject, focusing is simple; however, when you want to include several subjects at different distances from the camera in the same picture and have them all in sharp focus, it becomes more complicated. Unless the subject is distant scenery with nothing in the foreground, there is always one object that is closer to the camera than another. Then you must decide what part of the scene is to appear in sharp focus. In simple cases, such as a person standing against a plain background, the decision is simple-focus on the person. In more complex cases, when subjects both close and far from the camera must be in sharp focus, you should focus about one third of the distance into the scene. In other words, focus about one third of the distance between the closest and farthest subject you want in sharp focus. This is known as the depth of field which we will talk about later in this lesson.