June 2006
Intermediate to advanced
432 pages
13h 34m
English
Even though autofocus technology has been around for years, it’s not a perfect science. There are plenty of lighting conditions, like dark interiors, where your camera struggles to focus correctly. Autofocus works by looking for patches of contrast between light and dark—and if there’s no light, there’s no focusing.
An autofocus assist light (or AF assist) neatly solves the problem (Figure 1-5). In dim light, the camera briefly beams a pattern of light onto the subject, so the camera has enough visual information to focus.

Figure 1-5. An AF assist light, like the one on the Canon PowerShot series, greatly improves your percentage of properly focused shots.
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