A beginner’s tip today.
You should usually focus as follows:
- Select a single AF Point (focus point), rather than have the camera select one or more from all available points. Set your camera to the mode where this is the case. You will see something like the illustration above;
- Ensure that your focus point selection is not “locked” with a switch on the back of the camera, as is possible on many cameras;
- Using cursor or control wheel, move that focus point to where you want it;
- Ensure that the focus point is on an object at the distance you wish to focus on (either on your subject, or on some other object that is the same distance away). Note that “an object” means contrast/lines;
- Press the shutter half way down, until you see or hear confirmation that focus is achieved (“the beep”);
- While holding your finger on the shutter, recompose if need be;
- Now press fully down to take the picture.
The mode where the camera chooses focus points often results in multiple points lighting up. Does this somehow result in “more focus” (as in, greater depth of field)? No! It simply means all those focus points found something at roughly the same (close) distance. It is still just that distance that is in focus.
The point is this, and the pun is intended: more focus point does not give you more focus.
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