Sony Alpha DSLR A100: A Better Manual

Section 5: Basic Shooting Techniques

This section contains basic operational instructions that you can use in most real-life shooting situations. Of course, the real-life situations you encounter might have slightly different variables. Think of the situations described here as sample scenarios that can be adjusted to your particular experience.

Setting Focus

Basically, here's all you have to do to set focus:

1. Press the shutter button halfway.

2. Look in the viewfinder for the focus point, which lights up.

3. Pan and tilt the camera to line up the focus point with the area you want to be the sharpest area in the photo.

4. Release the shutter button and depress it halfway again, then move the camera so that the viewfinder is framing the picture as you'd like to see it.

5. Push the shutter button further down until you hear the camera click.

Actually, since the A100 is an SLR, you'll hear two clicks: one when the mirror flips up, the other when the mirror drops back down. Make sure you don't move the camera at all in the interval between the two clicks. That's because you want to make sure there's no blurriness at all in the photo caused by camera motion. If Super Steady Shot is turned on and the camera moves a tiny bit, the sensor will move exactly the same amount in the opposite direction. The result is a steady, sharp shot. Super Steady shot can't compensate for a shake of more than one-fifth of an inch, ...