Friday 27 April 2012

Critical focus - tips for good photography


On a DSLR when you look through the viewfinder you are actually looking through the main lens. This means you can focus using the resolution of the human eye. I always use the viewfinder and almost never the live view on the LCD screen. In a point and shoot camera you only have the live view on the LCD screen and this is not totally reliable if you are manually focusing. This is partly because the resolution of the LCD screen is not really good enough to ensure sharp focus and getting that focus quickly. Of course, most of the time point and shoot cameras are focusing automatically so even if the screen does not seem sharp the picture probably is.


I also use my DSLR camera in auto-focus mode because, especially when photographing a wedding, it is easier to trust the camera as there is often quite a bit of people movement and I am more interested in controlling the depth of field and the background blur, isolating the main subject. When doing portraits I sometimes use manual focus because it is critical to get those eyes sharp, particularly difficult in low light conditions when auto-focus can struggle to lock on.


So give me a real optical view finder over an LCD screen to ensure critical focus especially when you are in manual focus.

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