D7200 settings for fastest autofocus????

[Blind Bruce]

Nikon D7200 with kit lens, small living room "studio", wife posing huriadly and reluctantly, and some shots slightly out of focus. What settings would be best for faster focus other than Aperture priority and smaller aperature?

 

[tirediron]

Your camera mode and aperture will make no difference to your AF speed; the lens is wide open when focusing (unless you're using a fully manual lens). Things that may affect AF speed are: The contrast of the subject, the AF mode, and the available light in the room. When I'm doing portrait work, I use a single AF point in AF-S, with point over the subject's nearest eye.

 

[BobRossi]

Single point, more light.

Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

 

[Derrel]

AF-S, meaning autofocus, single-shot mode, which assigns priority to focusing over shutter release. In AF-C, or Continuous focusing, it's easily possible to take and out of focus shot.

 

[Designer]

Nikon D7200 with kit lens, small living room "studio", wife posing huriadly and reluctantly, and some shots slightly out of focus. What settings would be best for faster focus other than Aperture priority and smaller aperature?

That has happened to me as well. Once I was supposed to photograph my DIL's parents and was warned that her father could not tolerate posing for any length of time, so I was terribly rushed, and did not check everything that I should have checked. So they were not in focus, and I did not notice until they had left my house.

Lesson: Don't be in a rush. Find another model who will pose and patiently wait on you.

 

[KmH]

TPF has a Nikon Camera forum.
You might want to look through that forum for other Nikon camera AF advice.
Check this out too.

 

[wfooshee]

I think your question probably should be, how do I get more accurate auto-focus, not faster.

Make sure you're seeing a focus issue and not a motion blur issue. What was your shutter speed?

Make sure you're focusing where you think you're focusing. Don't use multi-point AF for a portrait, as the camera will focus on the highest contrast, or in some cases the closest object.

The focus priority Derrel mentioned is the default setting, but both can be changed in the menu. AF-S defaults to focus priority, meaning the shutter won't release if the camera hasn't focused. AF-C defaults to release priority, which means the camera may make an effort to focus but doesn't wait for perfection; it takes the picture. Both focus modes can be set for either focus or release priority.