10 Tips For Better Autofocus

Text And Photography By Rob Sheppard

Labels: How-To, Camera Technique

This Article Features Photo Zoom

1 Acadia National Park, Maine

It’s easy to take autofocus for granted. I know, I do. This technology is amazing—your camera has to figure out what should be sharp in a scene, focus the lens and take the picture, all in a fraction of a second. We expect our cameras to do this frame after frame without fail. Of course, autofocus does fail us at times. As much as the camera manufacturers would like us to believe that their autofocus (AF) technologies are beyond compare, it sometimes has problems and we get images that aren’t focused properly. Sometimes we believe manufacturers’ hype and expect cameras to be perfect in an imperfect world.

You can make autofocus work better for you. There are steps you can take with any camera you own that will get you consistently sharper pictures with autofocus. You could spend a lot of time studying how autofocus works and then compare cameras, but in my experience, this won’t help you get better pictures. Frankly, having used all sorts of camera models, I can tell you that no matter what the manufacturers tell you about their systems, each one seems to have its strengths and weaknesses. It’s true that certain pro cameras are designed for speed, including AF speed. If you’re photographing subjects like especially active wildlife, that could be a critical need, but if you’re photographing landscapes, it won’t matter.

The key is not to find the absolute “best” autofocus, but to get the best autofocus from your system. Here are some tips to follow.

2 St. Augustine, Florida

1 Lock Focus For Manual Focus
There are situations when the camera wants to keep changing its point of focus in continuous focus or it wants to shift focus points every time you press the shutter when you’re on single-shot autofocus. There are also times where you may find it hard to focus the camera manually, perhaps because you’re using a wide-angle lens and you need to be sure it focuses on a specific part of the scene. In any of these instances, you can use your autofocus to get you close by locking focus on a key part of the scene and then turning off the autofocus so you just have manual focus. You’ll be focused on a specific spot and, in essence, you’re using autofocus to help you with manual focus.

2 Lock Focus
It’s important to be sure that focus is in the right place in any scene, whether that’s a landscape or a flock of birds. When focus is off, it’s all too obvious and can ruin a perfectly good picture. Nature photographers often shoot in low-light conditions that can some-times make it hard to see to focus. We become dependent on autofocus in such situations. Watch the AF lights in your viewfinder as your camera finds focus. This will tell you where the camera is focusing. If the camera isn’t focusing in the right place, move your camera slightly as you press the shutter release halfway until the right place is highlighted. Keep the shutter release pressed to lock focus (or hold the AF button down if your camera has one) as you move the camera back to the composition and then press the shutter release all the way to take the picture.

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16 Comments

Auguste makes this comment

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Intereting and usefull to step back and be reminded of the basics one has started to take for granted, also very useful for new(er) photograhers.
Rob Schley makes this comment

Saturday, 13 December 2008

Great Article!
Michel makes this comment

Thursday, 22 January 2009

Great article that summarizes the key knowledge to autofocus. I'd like to mention that a lot of Canon camera's have a custom function. This function let's you use the AE button on the back of the camera to focus. When you release the button focus is locked. Pressing the shutter halfway will lock AE and pressing further will let you take the photograph. This is very handy since you can seperate the focus and composition steps without having to set the camera in MF mode. Don't know if other brands offer this option also?
Ray makes this comment

Friday, 23 January 2009

I some times get the problem in darker areas with auto focusing. To overcome that, i did exactly what has been explained in this article. On my Olympus Camera E500 i can lock the AEL on the back of the Camera Body and it will stay on until pressed again. That way i keep the exposure metering value for that area and can still move to try to focus on something around the subject to get the camera to auto focus. Go back spot i moved from and press shutter all the way down to take the Photo. When taking night shots and i have the Camera on a Tripod, auto focusing often is a problem. I lock the AEL on the are i want to take the shot. Then i move my camera to something of similar distance or best equal where it will auto focus. I then take my finger off the shutter release, re aim the camera back to where i initialy wanted to take the shot. I then set my Camera to manual focus mode so that my camera does not try to re focus again and hence spoiling my focus. I then take my shot.
Frank makes this comment

Thursday, 26 February 2009

All good advice, but what I'd really like to see is a return to the old style split ring focusing screens. It is virtually impossible (for me) to manually focus, or manually adjust focus, with these new screens. There's nothing to go by other than whether the light comes on...well, the light comes on in auto-focus and it's not right sometimes. The only way to really see focus is to stop down the lens, and that's just too time consumming in most cases. Also my 2x is virtually useless because it must be manually focused. Please bring back split rings!
George makes this comment

Friday, 27 February 2009

I agree with the person who advocates bringing back the split ring screens. It is almost impossible to have tack-sharp focus with the flat matte screens we have today, unless we are able to fully utilize the auto focus function. If we could always depend on auto focus it'd be great, but in low light situations it isn't dependable.
Mike Lysecki makes this comment

Monday, 13 April 2009

Just found out you had a newsletter. Joined in and within minutes found it to be helpful!!
Janis makes this comment

Saturday, 16 May 2009

The best advice I've ever seen about focusing is to use the back-button AF exclusively. I'm amazed at what an improvement that makes for me. In the menu I turned off any focusing by the shutter button method, and then put the switch on the front of the camera on C for continuous. As long as I keep the center AF point on a bird or animal and my thumb on the AF button, it tracks its movement very well. Then I take my thumb off the button to freeze the focus when the animal stops. Therefore I can keep the front switch on C at all times. This also works on flowers in the breeze, etc. Try it! You need to take a few dozen shots to get in the habit of always using that button but after that I predict you will never go back.
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Monday, 22 June 2009

Extremely informative article, well researched and clearly presented.Thanks for the hard work.
Jim Horne makes this comment

Thursday, 23 July 2009

Article
Outofocus makes this comment

Thursday, 23 July 2009

www.katzeyeoptics.com For those who miss split sceen manual focusing.
Ola makes this comment

Monday, 27 July 2009

Great article it just met me where i am Thanks
rebecca makes this comment

Wednesday, 12 August 2009

I agree with auto focus not always working. But I do need to explain how much I love all my film cameras. I have a Canon F-1, and and A-1, they are the split screen focus ring. I love it. I am in control of my picture not the camera. Remember it is you that is behind the camera and pressing the button not camera. I understand that digital can be crystal clear but the right film it also can be clear.
Jeff makes this comment

Monday, 17 August 2009

The AF button on my camera has brought autofocus to a completely differant level. It tracks extremely well and is a feature that I will be using frequently. Great Feature......
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10 Tips For Better Autofocus

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