Sometimes autofocus can really be annoying. For some shots it’ll focus on the right part of your subject, but then the very next shot it may choose to focus on something far and away into the background.
Sure, you could avoid this problem by always using manual focus, but autofocus is great when you need to focus quickly or when you’re photographing a landscape and you need to focus on a certain spot in the scene (this isn’t always easy to do with manual focus).
So, here are two ways to lock your focus and prevent your camera from autofocusing on the wrong part of your subject:
( 1 ) Set your autofocus point to the center spot, then point this spot at your subject (or a specific spot in your scene) and press your shutter button half-way (don’t completely press it yet). Then, while still holding down the button half-way, recompose your shot and press the button completely down.
( 2 ) Use autofocus as you normally do, but once it focuses on the right spot, just switch off autofocus on your lens to manual focus. Your lens will keep the current focus when you do this. I use this method all the time with landscapes.
About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, computer scientist, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains or the Mojave Desert, both located in the beautiful state of California.
This is interesting. I use a Nikon D40, with kit lenses, and manually focusing is pretty tough between the teeny-tiny focus dot and the way I have to focus the lenses.
Can you explain why using manual focus most of the time is better (I use the shutter half-pressed autofocus method) and also how switching to manual focus for landscapes helps?
Thank you.
Good tips, but I prefer the back-button AF method myself. If the right setting is chosen, you can disable AF completely on the shutter button and move it completely to the AF… at least on the Canon’s I’ve used. This way you can just keep shooting, working just like it does in MF mode until you hit the AF button again.