Focus

Manual focus

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Usually my focus is on auto focus. It’s fast and easy to use. My eyes are no more so good. Almost ever I use this setting.

Whenever I discover a new setting, I wonder: Why and when should I use this? It’s really very nice to learn what features a camera has and how great they are, but if I don’t know when to use them, they are redundant.

There are three situations when I set the focus to manual.

  1. Today I practiced yoga. I often take self portraits in order to check the postures. It helps me to improve the asanas. I have a remote control. My camera is on a tripod, I adjust ISO, aperture and time. Then I go to my yoga mat and make test shot. Often everything is fine. Then I get into a pose and often in vain. My body is out of focus. The auto focus has nothing to adjust. This is when I use manual focus. I put a chair or anything at the place where I exercise. I take a picture. The automatic focus adjust exactly where I’ll sit later. Then I remove the chair and set the focus on manual focus. That way I make sure that the camera clicks and that I am in focus.

2. I use manual focus when I need structures and backgrounds for my images. In this case I don’t use the manual focus to get sharp pictures. I aim for blurry pictures.

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3. When I see light, I set my camera to manual focus, too. Again I aim for blurry pictures. Usually I get a nice bokeh picture that I can blend into other pictures.

Manual focus works in both directions. Sometimes it helps to get the subject in focus, especially when taking self-portraits. One can also create blurry pictures and bokeh pictures.

Comments are welcomed.