Manual Focus on DLSRs

I've come to delight in the existence of autofocus. But there are times that the camera can't do what you want. The lighting may be too dim, or there might not be enough contrast in the scene. Or you might just want a couple of shots with varying points of focus, but don't want to wait for the autofocus to kick in between them. Here's how you make manual focus work for you:

1. Set the lens to manual focus.


2. Choose the most important part of your picture. That’s most likely the one you want to be sure is in focus. (Though there are times that deliberately putting the subject out of focus can work.)


3. Hold the camera viewfinder up to your eye and look at the subject.


4. Watch the viewfinder as you turn the lens’s focus ring. Concentrate on the important part of the image. That part will keep getting sharper until it can’t get any better, and then it will start to get fuzzier again. When it does, start the ring back the other way s-l-o-w-l-y until the image again looks sharp.


5. Press the shutter button and take your picture.

If the image doesn’t seem to be getting sharper, you may be turning the ring in the wrong direction, so spin it back the other way. And if you’re using a zoom lens and the image keeps changing sizes, you’ve just grabbed the zoom ring instead.

Especially at first, you may find yourself twisting the ring back and forth, trying to find the point at which the image is in best focus. Chalk it up to learning; as you practice, you’ll find that you can put a scene into focus quickly.