7. Manual Focus

When it’s best to go manual

When I first picked up a camera many, many years ago, there was no autofocus. It was incredibly frustrating trying to manually focus, especially on fast-moving subjects, but there was no other choice. I had plenty of out-of-focus shots before the practice started to pay off and I could manually focus pretty well. Even with today’s autofocus options, manual focusing is a valuable skill to learn. Although just letting the camera take care of the focusing is easier, being able to manually focus can help in situations where the autofocus doesn’t work or struggles to achieve focus.

Image

Nikon D700 • ISO 200 ...

Get A Photographer’s Guide to Focus and Autofocus: From Snapshots to Great Shots now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.