Manual focus ...

[echoyjeff222]

I'm getting the hang (I think) of using manual focus. There's a little bar that shows up to the right of the screen when i switch to manual focus -- it has a bar from a flower (macro?) on the bottom to infinity at the top. I've been playing around with what looks best, but I'm kind of confused about what it actually does. It seems like it's changing the DOF a lot when I move it down toward the flower, but when I move it all the way down everything is blurry.

Can someone possibly explain what the manual focus option actually does?

 

[Big Mike]

What does it say in the manual?

 

[echoyjeff222]

For some reason the manual isn't opening up on PDF -.- so i'm just experimenting right now ... about to upload some pictures that i took on a ruler.

 

[tevo]

manual focus as opposed to auto focus is you picking the focal point in your picture - controlling what you focus on rather than the camera doing it for you. for instance, if you are close to your subject and you focus in on it, the background will be blurred out. if the subject is far away and you focus in on it, the foreground will be semi blurred out. this is called depth of field, where your subject is in focus, but beyond that focal point is out of focus.

 

[echoyjeff222]

tested a few ... the little bar on the right side really makes a difference in terms of how clear your focus is ...

 

[tevo]

so, manual focus = focusing the lens manually, rather than auto focus = the camera focuses it for you

 

[echoyjeff222]

did the manual focus come out alright in those?

 

[tevo]

tested a few ... the little bar on the right side really makes a difference in terms of how clear your focus is ...

well of course. when there is distance from you and your subject(s), the camera in autofocus will try to adjust so everything is in focus. if you have a single subject, and you are close to it, you manually set the focal point to where you want, so only that is in focus, and everything else is OOF.

 

[tevo]

yeah they did - if you stood back a little and shot it in auto focus, the whole ruler would be in focus. you are using MF correctly

 

[echoyjeff222]

yeah they did - if you stood back a little and shot it in auto focus, the whole ruler would be in focus. you are using MF correctly

great thanks :thumbup:

 

[tevo]

any time ! tips: if you want a deep DOF, then get farther away from the subject, zoom in on it, and focus to it. this will give you a narrow focal point on the subject, and everything else is out of focus.

 

[echoyjeff222]

wait, i thought that was shallow depth of field?

 

[tevo]

eh, you might be right i confuse those a lot -__- idk, ask big mike or someone id like to know the correct answer to that one too haha

 

[Blake.Oney]

It's shallow if you zoom in. A deeper DOF puts more things into focus. The bar on your camera is basically showing distance. The flower is for things that are very close, and infinity will focus on anything that is past a certain distance (the distance is different for different cameras). You can focus by just looking and seeing where the focus is, or you can estimate you camera to subject distance and use the bar to get close to the focus you want (what I would do with things a little further away. For things that are closer like that ruler I would just look in the viewfinder/lcd and watch exactly where my focus is.

 

[tevo]

/thanks