What would our photographs be without proper focus? There is nothing worse than a poorly focused photo. We can work on it well, we can frame well, take care of the composition, the exposure, the white balance, stabilize the camera with a good tripod, and everything we can think of, but if the photo is poorly focused, it will inevitably go to waste. So sad!
Today I’m going to explain everything you need to know to focus on photography. I’ll explain in the first part how the approach works and we’ll look at it with a practical example taken from real life. I’ll explain the things that influence the approach to get it right, then we’ll see when it’s practical to use manual focus and when to do it automatically. Finally, I’ll explain a little thing you need to know about autofocus.
- Practical exercise: 1) Choose one eye that you will keep open and close the other.
- Close it well and close it throughout the exercise.
- Make sure you close it well.
- You can cover it with your hand.
- Make sure you have only one eye open.
- 2) Now place a pen or pencil upright between you and the computer screen.
- 3) Try reading this while you have the pen between you and the computer.
- When you read this you will see that the pen or pencil is erased.
- 4) Now try to focus this pen or pencil.
- Look at it.
- Look at it for a few seconds.
- You will notice that this text has become blurry.
!! Congratulations!! You’ve just completed a focus and blur exercise. The same goes for SLR photography.
The image is composed in the lens or lens and then reaches the inside of the camera (the sensor) already composed, the sensor only records it as defined by the lens lenses, it is very similar to what happens with the human being, when we look at something, the image is defined in the eye, the eye is the one that focuses what we see , and once focused, transmits it to our brain that translates what we see, the brain would be the equivalent of the camera sensor, everything is In an SLR camera, when we are in manual focus mode, we turn the lens focus wheel and while we do, there are a series of crystals inside the lens that begin to move back and forth , thus achieving the approach we are looking for.
It is outrageous, but the human eye works with the same complexity as the lens of an SLR camera or higher and yet we do not need an instruction manual to focus well. Concentrate in no time. It’s beastly.
Focusing is a very sensitive thing, there are a number of elements that influence the approach and, at the slightest alteration, completely spoil it. See:
While compact cameras take automatic control of everything, DSLRs almost always give us the option to do it manually or let the camera do it for us. For me, doing things manually is the fastest and most direct way to learn and master photography, so if you’ve always let the camera focus for you, it’s time you took some control over it. manual focus. so you will learn a lot and quickly. There are also situations where it is better to focus manually.
I find it very suitable and more effective in the following situations: Macro photography: As it involves photographing very small details and with extreme precision, you cannot take risks with an autofocus. It is best to focus on the object you want to photograph with extreme precision. Lack or lack of light: Some SLR cameras go crazy trying to focus in the dark. If there is not enough light, autofocus becomes a waste of time. When you don’t have a lot of light, it is better to focus. Portraits: For successful portrait photography, it is recommended to always focus on the model’s eyes. We can only achieve this by focusing manually. Photo through glass: When there is glass in the middle, the camera lens may get confused and focus on the glass instead of the outside. This is more likely to happen if the glass has any kind of dirt, dust, or drops on it. For these types of situations, always manual focus. Several subjects and a single protagonist: If you have tried to photograph a friend on a busy street, you will have noticed that the autofocus does not know who it needs to focus on (logical, since our camera does not know our friend: -PAGS). The same happens if we have several neighboring objects and we only want to focus on one in particular. Manual focus please.
I personally use autofocus whenever I find myself in any of these situations:
In autofocus, the camera intervenes and takes control of the lens of the lens, moving them so that the thing is well focused, or at least that’s what the poor camera is trying to do, but how does it do it?There are a number of methods, technologies, ways in which today’s SLR cameras can try to guess where we want to photograph and therefore focus it: one of the most common methods is contrast comparison, the camera focuses on color contrast. between different objects. There are also other methods such as infrared, which consists simply of emitting infrared light and studying the light reflected by the object to focus it. Ultrasound is another method used by some cameras such as polaroid and allows focus without having to resort to lens or lens.
In your case, the safest thing is that your camera relies on the contrast of objects to focus.
Obvious question, but among my readers there are always people who are late. You can switch between auto focus mode and manual focus mode normally on the side of the lens, there is usually a button that indicates (A / M) or AF and MF. Moving it towards M (or MF), we will be in manual mode and we can start moving the focus wheel and thus concentrate as we want. That we get tired? We put it back in A (or AF) and that’s it. Note: some lenses use M for manual mode and A / M for hybrid mode which allows both automatic and manual.
That’s all for today. With this, you should already have a full view of the subject in focus on SLR cameras. I’ve tried to make the article as simple and informative as possible, avoiding all those techniques and jargon that are normally scary as much as possible. I would have liked to go into more technical details, but I’m saving it for a future occasion. By now, you should know how to take good approaches.
Can I ask you a favor? Only if you liked today’s article or found it interesting, help me spread it, recommend it, that’s all.
I say, practice.