MANUAL FOCUS LENS: Any basic and advanced tips???

[rateeg]

Hi
i bought a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens for my D40 and yet i am having trouble focusing on the viewfinder.
Any tips to get the sharp focus while shooting without a tripod?

 

[Stradawhovious]

Hi
i bought a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens for my D40 and yet i am having trouble focusing on the viewfinder.
Any tips to get the sharp focus while shooting without a tripod?

get familiar with the focus indicator light in the lower left hand corner of your viewfinder. When your subject (set focal point) is in focus, the indicator light will light up green.

that and practice, practice practice.

Or, you could take the lazy way out and buy a body with an internal focus motor.

 

[rainking]

Or return that and get the 35mm 1.8 that has an internal focusing motor.

 

[Stradawhovious]

Or return that and get the 35mm 1.8 that has an internal focusing motor.

Or that.

But I would still practice with manual focus, There will be certain situations where the AF just won't work.

 

[Big Mike]

Any tips to get the sharp focus while shooting without a tripod?

Blur (not out of focus, but similar results) can also be a result of your shutter speed being too slow to freeze the movement of the subject or the camera (in your hands).

So make sure that you shutter speed is adequate for what you are shooting, then when you focus accurately, you will be able to see it in the image.

As a rule of thumb, you should try to keep your shutter speed to at least 1/50 (1/60) with that lens...1/75 would be better.

 

[KmH]

A 50 mm f/1.8 can also have very shallow depth-of-field at wide apertures, leading an inexperienced photographer to think something was amiss when there wasn't.

When manually focusing, go from being focused in front of your focal point, to being focused behind your focal point, and then returning to having focus on your focal point. That ususlally results in the best focus because your eye knows what sharp looked like as you went past it by focusing in back of your focal point.

 

[rateeg]

Thanks folks for the reply.
i will try all the tips and see what works best for me.