Manual lens focusing skills Practical photography skills

1. Low light environment. In low-light environments, objects have little contrast, and the AF system relies on light and contrast to work. Your camera may have a focus assist light. But in an environment like the one pictured above, the focus assist light doesn’t work either. Although the above image looks normally exposed, the light was actually very low. The exposure time of this photo is 30 seconds.

2. Low contrast objects. When you're looking at something like a smooth wall, it's impossible for the camera to focus, no matter how bright the light is. You can focus on other areas with detail, hold the shutter button halfway to lock focus, and then pan the camera to recompose the shot. Or focus manually.

3. Photograph wildlife. Most wild animals have excellent hearing. No matter how good your AF system is, it will always make noise. Even the softest focus sound has the potential to disturb an animal. If you want the most natural-looking photos, turn off autofocus.

4. Photograph the scenery. When shooting landscapes, you generally want to keep everything sharp from the foreground to the mountains in the distance. This requires closing the aperture to increase the depth of field and using a hyperfocal distance to focus. Remember to turn off autofocus, otherwise the camera will refocus when you press the shutter, usually at infinity.

5. HDR. Making HDR photos requires that all single photos must have the same focus point. If you use autofocus, the focus will change slightly in each photo.

6. Photograph moving objects. When photographing fast-moving objects, the camera will try to change focus as the distance changes, but usually fails. The photo below uses autofocus and burst shooting, and the results are not ideal. Then I turned off autofocus and used manual focus to pre-focus on the landing point of the car, and the result was much better.

7. Shoot through glass. Shooting through glass is generally not a good idea. Should be avoided as much as possible. But sometimes it's unavoidable, like on airplanes, in aquariums, etc. The problem with the AF system at this point is that it may focus on reflections or glass. So close it.

8. Take portraits. The golden rule when photographing portraits is to focus on the eyes. In addition, large apertures and shallow depth of field effects are often used. But if the AF system focuses on the eyebrows or nose, the eyes will be blurry.

9. Macro. Autofocus is difficult to work with for macro photography. At this point, the depth of field is extremely shallow and the camera cannot determine where to focus. You have to take control.

10. Use the rule of thirds to compose your shot. If the camera's focus point is fixed at the center, or there are not enough focus points at the edges, it will be inconvenient to use the rule of thirds to compose the photo.