10 Tips For Better Autofocus

Text And Photography By Rob Sheppard

Labels: How-To, Camera Technique

This Article Features Photo Zoom

3 Acadia National Park, Maine

3 Change Your AF Point
Most cameras allow you to select a specific AF point. The standard way that autofocus works in cameras is for the camera to choose what it thinks is the best focus point from an array of AF points across the scene. This works in a lot of situations. But if you have a subject that must be sharp in a specific part of the composition, you’re best off changing this default setting to a specific AF point where you need sharpness. One example is an animal that continually comes to a specific area in the composition. You need to be sure the animal is absolutely sharp, yet the subject may be at slightly different distances from the camera so that manual focus can’t be used. Simply select an AF point where the animal is likely to be.

4 Know Your Camera’s Idiosyncrasies
It’s great fun for photographers to get together and debate the relative merits of different cameras. And there’s no question that there are differences in the way that cameras handle autofocus. While the debate may be fun, it doesn’t help you get better pictures with your camera. You need to learn the idio-syncrasies of autofocus with your camera. What does it do best? Where does it seem to have problems? This comes from using your camera in all sorts of situations. One of the great things about digital photography is that you can shoot lots of pictures in order to see what your camera can do, yet there’s no cost to shooting those pictures.

4 Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

Sure, we’d all like the latest and greatest of the newest cameras, but until we can afford that new purchase, we need to understand how to get the best from the equipment that we do have. Every time that I purchase or test a new camera, I always take it out and play with it before I have to use it seriously. I want to know the camera’s idiosyncrasies regarding autofocus and other controls. It’s important to work with the camera in your hand and get the most out of it rather than worry that it can’t do something it wasn’t designed for.

5 SAF Vs. CAF Vs. Hybrid
Your camera offers at least two options for autofocus: single shot (SAF) and continuous (CAF). Single-shot AF locks down the focus and won’t allow the camera to shoot until focus is confirmed. This is an important type of focus for most standard nature scenes where focus doesn’t change (and shouldn’t change). Continuous autofocus allows the camera to focus continually as you take pictures, updating the progress of a moving subject, for example.

5 San Elijo Lagoon, California

A third option on many cameras is a hybrid. This type of autofocus allows the camera to decide when to use single-shot autofocus and continuous autofocus. This has never been a choice that I’ve liked. It seems like the camera is always choosing the wrong type of autofocus and screwing up my focus as I shoot. I’d rather choose a specific type of autofocus based on the subject and movement of the subject.

6 Watch For Bright Light
Bright light in your composition, especially the sun, can confuse your AF system. A dramatic way of photographing a landscape with trees is to shoot it against the sun so the sun creates a starburst pattern through the trees. But that dramatic effect also can cause problems with autofocus. Try moving the camera to autofocus without the sun and then reframing the composition. You also might have to change the camera to manual focus for scenes like this.

6 Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

7 Beware Of AF Up Close
Autofocus often has trouble when you’re dealing with close subjects. Depth of field is so shallow that even a slight change in focus can make the difference between a good picture and one for the trash. Very often the camera will choose the wrong point for focus up close. For this reason, many of the best macro shooters use manual focus for close-up work. There’s also a trick to using autofocus up close. Move your camera around and lock focus on an important part of your subject. Keep that focus locked and gently move your camera toward and away from the subject until you have exactly the right spot in focus. Take the picture. Another thing that drives you crazy up close is when the camera starts focusing to infinity. Many lenses have focus limiters for just this reason. If yours has such a switch, set it so that it only focuses at a close distance when you’re doing close-up photography.

8 Faster Lenses Help AF
A fast lens is a lens with a wide maximum aperture, such as ƒ/2.8. If you need fast autofocusing, you need a fast lens. Most zooms are slower lenses with maximum apertures of ƒ/4 or so, especially the compact zooms. If you have an extended range zoom that’s also compact, you can find that the lens speed gets very slow. For subjects such as landscapes or flowers, that’s not a big deal. For fast-moving wildlife, a slow lens can have a big effect on how quickly you can get the animal in focus.

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14 Comments

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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......
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.
Ola makes this comment

Monday, 27 July 2009

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

Thursday, 23 July 2009

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

Thursday, 23 July 2009

Article
image masking services makes this comment

Monday, 22 June 2009

Extremely informative article, well researched and clearly presented.Thanks for the hard work.
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.
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!!
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.
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!
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.
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?
Rob Schley makes this comment

Saturday, 13 December 2008

Great Article!
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.

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10 Tips For Better Autofocus

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