FOCUS LIKE A PRO - More photography and camera tips for beginners.

i put out photography tutorials every single week and last week's video was all about shooting with a camera in the auto mode versus shooting in the manual mode and as a result of putting out that video i got lots and lots of questions asking me about focusing so in this video i want to share with you some really cool focus tips both for auto focus and also manual focus so you can focus like a pro hi paul here from photogenius welcome to my channel where i put out weekly photography tutorials i share tips and tricks occasionally i do gear reviews as well if you're new please consider subscribing now um the topic of focusing i've covered before in previous videos but i actually thought it was about time that i tackled this again because things have changed so i want to bring things up today cameras have evolved technology has evolved and also last week's video which was all about shooting auto versus manual raised quite a few questions about focusing now in that video and i definitely recommend you watching it if you've missed it i'll put a link in the description below this video and also up here in that video it really showed that when the camera is in the auto mode it doesn't really make the right choices we can do better if we're willing to put the camera into one of the manual modes and tell the camera what to do and when it comes to focusing there's two really important things that you want to be able to do number one is you want to be able to tell the camera where the subject is what the subject is so the camera knows where and on what to focus and secondly you want to be able to tell the camera whether that subject is going to be static or moving and these are the things we're going to tackle in this video coming up how to control the camera's focus points to put you in control how to get more from your canon or nikon including camera settings focus tips for moving subjects and sport manual focus and more so for last week's video i was shooting with the canon t7 or 1500d this is a great beginner's camera and with this camera you can take really great photos here's one of the images i shot last week and what you're seeing here is an image that is straight out of camera it's the jpeg it hasn't been edited and it hasn't been sharpened in any way and i think it looks really cool but here is the auto shot so for this shot the camera is making all the decisions and as you can see as well as being a terrible exposure it is also completely out of focus which is not ideal now this is what we want to try and tackle in this video so if focusing has been an issue for you in the past make sure you stick around because hopefully in this video we're going to fix that so which camera mode you use is entirely up to you but to get more from your camera let's get out of the auto mode m for manual if you're feeling confident or maybe av which is aperture priority this is a good beginner's mode okay so i have my camera in the manual mode but that doesn't mean i can't use and take advantage of autofocus so to begin with we're going to look at autofocus options and then later on in the video we're going to take a look at shooting manual focus as well now let's start with the basics now to focus with a camera like this all you've got to do is point your camera at your subject and press the button halfway down to focus now normally you will hear the camera beep and the beep is a good thing it means the camera has successfully focused now if your camera isn't beeping it probably means you've either turned the beep off or maybe changed some of the settings at this stage i probably wouldn't worry about it too much but what's really important here is i'm pressing the button just halfway down to focus i'm not rushing i'm not pressing the button all the way down if i do that it takes a picture but we're not quite at that stage yet so i know this is basic but it's incredibly important to focus you press the button halfway down and keep your finger there keep it halfway down you'll find out more and why later on one of the main problems with autofocus is that it tends to prioritize things that are closer to the camera which here is a well-worn dog toy press the shutter button halfway down once again and it refocuses this time on another dog toy re-press the shutter button once again and third time lucky now finally i get a nice sharp photo of our dog boo so this is one of the reasons why i choose not to use the auto mode i don't want the camera to make decisions for me i want the ability to make these decisions myself so what i'm going to do is i'm going to show you how easy it is to tell the camera where you want it to focus and i'm going to demonstrate this for you with a canon camera as well as a nikon camera so typically look for a button that has this icon either on it or above it this button is usually found top right of the camera if you have a canon dslr or mirrorless camera now when you press this button you can then select the individual focus points simply by turning the control dial on the top of the camera so rather than the camera choosing what to focus on by controlling the focus points individually you can now select where the camera focuses to control the focus points on a nikon start by pushing the i button and then choosing af area mode from the options available now depending on which camera you have you may see alternative options i recommend trying single point autofocus push the ok button to select and you will now see the display changes to show a single focus point using the multi selector buttons on the back of the camera you can now easily select the focus point you wish to use so when taking a picture the first thing i always think about is my composition and secondly i make sure my camera is focusing on the subject by selecting the focus point that falls on my subject this is something you want to get into the habit of doing every time you take a picture okay the next tip is all about which focus mode to use and which focus mode we use depends on the subject and whether it's static or moving so with canon cameras the default focus mode is called one shot now you can select this using the af button on the back or the top of the camera for nikon and most other cameras this is called single autofocus or auto focus single and you can use the i button to select this mode so at the moment i'm using the camera's single auto focus mode which means that the camera has focused on me but locked the focus this tree here this branch is also the same distance from the camera as me so keep an eye on this branch now the problem with this mode is when the subject which is me moves if i walk backwards you're going to see that i go out of focus but the branch remains in focus if i come back to my original position of course i'm back in focus and if i move closer to the camera i'm now out of focus so imagine how difficult it could be to focus on me if i was doing sports and i was moving around really quickly this is a great focus mode but it's not ideal when the subject begins to move so to fix this when taking photos of moving subjects choose ai servo if you have a canon camera afc caf which is continuous focus for nikon and other cameras so now i have the camera in the continuous focus mode it doesn't matter if i move further away from the camera or closer to the camera the camera is going to adjust the focus in real time this is great for moving subjects and especially sports photography now if you are using the continuous focus mode for sports and moving subjects just make sure you keep the shutter button pressed halfway down because if you don't the focus motor switches off and the camera cannot focus so what we've learned so far is that by getting out of auto and using the camera's manual modes we can tell the camera what to do and we can make the decisions things like which focus point to use and which focus mode to use based on whether your subject is going to be moving or non-moving autofocus is great when you're in control and i guarantee the camera can focus quicker than you can so why wouldn't you use it it's great okay next we're going to go back to the old-school way of doing things i want to talk about manual focus to focus manually you don't press the button halfway down instead you adjust the focus yourself by turning what is called the focus ring on the lens it's actually quite easy to do this is usually the preferred method of focusing for landscape photographers and astrophotographers plus i think everyone should know how to manually focus the lens as a backup plan if auto is not working let me show you how easy it is to do to select manual focus use the switch on the side of the lens but if your lens does not have a switch simply select manual focus using the camera's focus mode you can then adjust the focus by turning the focus ring this is usually found at the end of the lens and not to be confused with the zoom manually adjusting the focus is definitely something to practice and can be used when recording videos as well here i've used manual focus to shift the viewer's attention from one camera to another manual focusing is very popular with landscape photographers product and astrophotographers knowing how to manually focus a lens is very important that way you have something to fall back on if order focus is struggling now here's a good example of where manual focus can be very useful because autofocus is going to want to focus on the net but i wanted to focus on the goalie who was beyond the netting so the solution was manual focus and i got the shot i wanted and if you find manual focus tricky a good tip is to use the digital zoom in live view let me show you how this works so using this canon camera what i'm trying to achieve is a nice sharp image of this ginger beer can i'm going to be using manual focus and live view so i begin by turning on the camera's live view mode and at the moment you can see the subject is clearly out of focus so what i'm going to do is press the plus button on the back of the camera and this is called digital zoom now i reach around the front of the lens adjust the focus and this does make it a lot easier to focus on the subject once i've got it nice and sharp i then press the plus button once again to reset and i'm ready to take my image so to use the digital zoom feature in live view you're actually using the same plus button that you would use to zoom in when playing back and reviewing your images most entry level cameras will have between 9 and 12 focus points grouped around the center of the frame but like most things in life spend a bit more money on a camera and you get more features and in this case more focus points now mirrorless cameras like the nikon z7 have 493 autofocus points covering the entire frame with the canon r6 you can move a single focus point to any one of over 6 000 positions and with mirrorless cameras now taken over from dslr cameras we have additional focus modes such as eye detection which is pretty amazing so i want to finish by saying a big thank you for watching and for supporting my channel here on youtube if you've enjoyed the video please give it a thumbs up because it really helps the channel grow i put out new videos every single week so if you don't want to miss out consider subscribing and if you've got a question or just want to say hi you can do so in the comments section down below hope to see you again sometime soon see ya bye

Channel: Photo Genius

Views: 72,271

Keywords: camera focus explained, photography tips for beginners, camera focus tips, camera focus settings, photography, ai servo vs one shot, ai servo canon, canon focus points explained, canon focus points, nikon, canon, nikon focus modes, nikon focus settings, nikon focus points, manual focus, how to manual focus photography, focus points explained, canon 1500d, canon t7, nikon d3500, nikon z6, photography tutorial, how to control focus points, photography lessons

Id: BB0JYRQ5bQI

Length: 12min 16sec (736 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 26 2021