September Newsletter - Focus Tips
Sep 16, 2020
If the focus isn’t right, nothing is! Along with composition, focus is critical to a great photograph. Here are some tips from Kevin Landwer-Johan, noted photographer, along with a few of my editorial comments. All of the photos are mine.
Focus is vital. Capturing your subject in crisp, sharp focus requires skill and practice. You need to understand the various auto-focus controls on your camera. Here are some focusing tips to help you get sharp photos more consistently.
There’s no fixing an out-of-focus photo!
Many digital photographers like to use the various sharpening options available in software. Don’t be tempted. I have never known an out-of-focus photo to be well improved with post-production manipulations. Either your photos are in focus or they are not.
Focus on your subject
Pick your point and focus on it. Having the wrong part of your composition in focus will not result in a good photograph. You must decide what’s in your frame that’s most important and focus on it.
It’s important to know what you want to focus on. This is something I prefer not to let my camera choose for me. As you are composing your photo, be mindful of your main subject. Consider it’s depth. Is most of your subject the same distance from your camera? Or is some of it closer to you than other parts? Photographing a bicycle that’s side on to you, most of it is about the same distance from your camera. Taking a photo of the bike as it faces the camera will mean you need to choose whereabouts on it to focus. If you focus on the back wheel, the front wheel may be out of focus.
One rule of thumb I use most of the time is, if your subject has eyes, focus on them. If one eye is closer to your camera than the other, focus on the closest one. Subjects with eyes that are out of focus rarely look good in photos.
Editor’s note: since I do almost exclusively landscape photography, let me add some ideas here. Since the subject doesn’t move it is much easier to focus. However it is still imperative that you decide what the subject is, and make sure it is in focus. With landscapes you usually want a deeper depth of field. For that you will want to use a higher f-stop, anywhere from f8 to f16. Or you can take some shallow depth of field shots and focus stack them. That was the subject of the August newsletter.
Multi or single point auto-focus?
Digital cameras usually have various setting options for choosing your focus point. You can set your camera to only focus on a single point. Or you can set it to choose from multiple points. More advanced cameras allow you to set the area and number of focus points. I prefer to have my camera set to single point auto-focus. This allows me to be precise and in control of what I focus on. Having your camera set to multi-point auto-focus means your camera chooses what part of your composition to focus on. Some camera models allow you to move the single focus point to position it where you want in the frame.
Using a camera where you can precisely control the single point the camera will auto-focus on, gives you control. You can move the point to the portion of the frame where you want to focus easily.
About the only time I use multi-point auto-focusing, is when I am tracking a moving subject that is constant. The camera will often be able to lock on and keep with a subject unless the subject is moving erratically.
Using manual focus.
Some may think that manual focusing is too slow or difficult, but it’s not if you practice it. You can become proficient in a short space of time if you commit to learning. Once you know how you will be surprised at how often manual focus skills come in handy. Auto-focus is a wonderful technology, but it’s not always perfect. When you find your lens searching for a focus point and struggling to find one, it pays to switch over to manual if you know what you are doing. Manually controlling your focus in low light can often be faster and more precise than your camera’s auto-focus. This is critical especially for night photography.
Focus technique
I hope you have found these focusing tips for beginners useful. Remember, don’t leave it all to your camera. Getting well-focused images is not all about managing your camera’s auto-focus system. You need to work on your focus techniques and know what to do when you are photographing different subjects. This is particularly important when your subject is moving. Practice, as always, will make you sharper, and your images too.