Photography course: Lesson 2 of ‘In the land of the blind…’

I’m the one-eyed Queen in the land of the blind that is called Photography.I’m sure there are many blind people in the Blogland of Photography too. (What can be worse than being a blind photographer?) People who own a fancy camera, but only use the automatic setting(s), because they don’t know about aperture and shutter speed. I used to be one of them. But not any more! I know a thing or two now and am willing to share my limited knowledge with you. We can all be one-eyed Kings and Queens together! World domination will be only a small step further.

The only thing is, I’m not quite sure about all the technical photography terms in English. But I’ll try to make sense anyway. And this course (ahum) is not meant for users of the digital point-and-shoot cameras, although they will probably get some useful information and tips out of this too, but for people who have a digital SLR camera.

If you decide to join us on our quest for world domination becoming a better photographer, please post your photos and notify me that you’ve done so (please include the link to that post). I’d be interested to see if what I’m trying to explain is clear enough. If you have any questions concerning the ‘lessons’ please ask them in the comments section of that ‘lesson’. I’ll answer them there too. You can of course also find lots of websites about photography, written by people who really know what they are talking about, but they will be less fun. Of course.

 

Lesson 2: autofocus and manual focus

So, I’ve asked you in lesson 1 to grab your camera and the instruction manual and to look up how you can set your camera so, that it will only focus on the centre point in your viewfinder.

Sometimes you will find however that your camera just can’t seem to get a grip on the subject you’re trying to focus on. However still you keep the camera, it just can’t seem to focus and it keeps changing and whirring and you’re beginning to get a bit desperate.

Never fear!

Perhaps you are just too close to your subject. If you are trying to take a shot of, for instance, a beautiful flower, as close-up as possible (Low F-number, Large lens opening, Less sharpness in the background), your lens probably can’t handle the short distance between camera and subject.
(All kinds of technical reasons for that, but I’m not going into that here. We’re keeping it simple and fun. Especially because I’m not good in technical reasoning.)

Or the surface of your subject is too even and your camera can’t find anything to hold on to and focus on. It happens. Your camera is only human, you know.

(Also, if you have chosen the lowest F-number possible, the area your camera focuses on is very small. You know, lots of blurriness around your subject. If either of you, your subject or you yourself, moves ever so slightly… floop, your subject is out of that focus area and the camera starts focussing again. You can try to ‘up’ the F-number to increase the focus area. But because you’re closing your lens opening then (that doesn’t seem to make sense, but it does), your shutter speed will get somewhat slower too. You may need a tripod. It seems that nothing is ever as simple as you’d like it to be.)

Okay, so, we are ignoring the above sub-section for now, and will be focussing on being too close to your subject or your subject is too even. One of the choices you can make in the settings of your camera is autofocus (AF) or manual focus (MF). It probably is a small switch on your lens. If you push that switch to manual focus (MF), you can twist one of the rings on the lens to focus. Don’t confuse that ring with the zoom-in/zoom-out ring on your lens though. If your subject seems to get closer or further away from you, you’re turning the wrong ring. Try another one.

(You do of course know that you keep the camera in your right hand and support the lens with the fingers of your left hand under it, thumb pointing away from you. That is the easiest way to keep the camera as steady as possible and you’ll be able to turn the rings.)

If you manually focus on your subject, you will be able to get a little bit closer to your subject than when using the autofocus.

MF will also work when trying to photograph something in water, like a reflection. Do try to focus manually if the autofocus doesn’t work, but always remember to set the button back to autofocus (AF). It will prevent the next photos you’ll be taking to be a blurry mess.

If AF (autofocus) doesn’t work, try the MF (manual focus) setting on your lens.

It sounds to simple, but you wouldn’t believe how many people don’t know about the AF/MF switch.

 

THE FUNNY THING IS…

I just recently discovered what the AF-ON button on the back of my camera is for. Never bothered to look that up before, haven’t even tested it out yet, but supposedly it is something you can’t do without. Shows how much I know. Not that much then.

I found an interesting article on the internet, here, that has lots more information about the ‘back-button AF’, and I copied the part below from there (hasten to add that the rest of this ‘In the land of the blind…’ photography course is completely written by me):

Easier to lock focus
If you are shooting something like a series of portraits of a person, and you want them composed off-centre, back-button AF makes it super-easy to take as many pictures as you want. Focus on your subject by pressing the rear button (more on which button later in this article). Once in-focus, take your thumb off the rear button. Re-compose the shot to move your subject off-centre. Shoot as many pictures as you like. With focus activation removed from the shutter button, you now can fire any time you like, and remove your index finger from the shutter button after a shot is taken. No matter what, the camera makes no effort to re-focus when you press the shutter button half-way down again.

I’m definitely going to try that!