The BEST Focusing Technique (FOR SERIOUS SHARPNESS!!)

[Music] so welcome back to the channel guys and it is looking like we're gonna get a beautiful autumnal rainy woodland adventure today so i'm really looking forward to it um i want to talk all about this new focusing technique that i've been using a lot over the past two to three months that really helps me get pin sharp photographs every single time that i use this technique and i think you're going to find it pretty interesting apart from that let's go and see if we can find some nice photographs in this stunning woodland come with me [Music] so yeah for any of you that watch my channel regularly you're probably thinking i've already seen this technique where you use the lcd screen and you're kind of zooming in now i'm still doing that but i've changed it up ever so slightly so stick with me and i think you're gonna find it pretty interesting um and i like to think i've just sort of fine-tuned this technique like i said at the start there over the past probably two to three months and it's working wonderfully well for me now before we can get into that we need to find um a photograph or a composition to work on um this is my local woodland i honestly haven't been here properly with my camera since spring i've driven through it a lot i feel like it's just starting to hit like proper autumn now it is absolutely honestly the colors are amazing really nice conditions today um fortunately this is somewhere i've been a lot so even if i can't find any new compositions i feel like i can return to older ones and actually improve on them because the conditions sorry the colours are so beautiful um let's go and see what we can find [Music] in [Music] i step into the water to wash away the pain [Music] so a lot of you guys that watch me regularly i would like to think that you recognize this scene instantaneously and i was back here in spring and i took a photograph of this this um this very scene this very woodland scene i'll pop it up on the screen now i was really happy with that shot but i'm just i'm just going back now to see if i can get a better version of it whilst we've got all these colors and compositionally the only thing that i'm struggling with is there's a lot less leaves on the trees because we're well into autumn now which means we're naturally capturing more of the sky look there's so many more gaps as you look up sort of through the canopy which is a little bit of a shame but i've just tried to angle my camera down ever so slightly um to try and eradicate as much of that sky as possible so the composition is going to be slightly different now before we get into the focusing technique that i use here and i use probably 95 percent of the time let's talk about where to focus okay that's equally as important in my opinion um now i've said this before on this channel i think focal points in landscape photography can be really over complicated and i've got two approaches that work for me every time i'm either focusing one third of the way into the image and stopping down ever so slightly or i'm choosing a prominent subject within my frame to focus on you know i'm choosing something right what do i want to focus on what do i want to be the sharpest area of this photograph and that's the approach that i'm using here so compositionally we've got this beautiful sycamore tree here that's on the very left-hand side of my frame which leans in to this area of the forest and eventually to this beautiful beech tree in the very far right hand side of my frame okay so you can see how the composition works you know this sycamore tree sort of leans in this way encourages the eye to move this way then you've got this tree which encourages the eye to go this way eventually into the beach tree now focal points i need to focus on this sycamore tree i want it to be tack sharp you know it's fairly close to the lens i'm not bothered if we lose a tiny little bit of focus as we move back towards this beach tree for me that's just quite natural you know i want this pin sharp so let's get into the focus technique this is all about using your live view using your lcd screen okay and what we're going to do is actually use the magnification buttons here and we're going to zoom right in on the area where you want to focus zoom as far as you can go really and for me like i said i'm zooming in or magnifying in sorry on this sycamore tree so there we go we get really really far in which means we get a really good idea of whether or not we're actually going to be in focus but this is where i've changed my technique a little bit once i'm magnified in i will now auto focus so i've assigned this back button here as my focus button my shutter button now purely just takes photographs okay it doesn't focus once i'm zoomed all the way in like this i'll hit the back back back button focus sorry and there we go it locks into focus and here's the thing right this is why i think it's a great hybrid of man and machine you know we've got the autofocus feature but because we're so incredibly magnified in i can use my eyes just to double or treble check whether or not it's actually locked into focus properly if you're magnified all the way out and you're focusing somewhere you know the little square might go green you might think it's in focus uh but it might not be you know sometimes it can malfunction it's just a machine at the end of the day especially when it's dark which you so often get in a woodland scene so because we're so magnified in i can use my eyes and i can see yep it locks into focus that looks wonderfully sharp magnify all the way back out take the photograph and you can guarantee that that focal point is going to be pin sharp every single time i'd like to think i've said this in the past as well i'd like to think that my photographs are a great example of how this works for me i've never ever had any troubles with my focus so i'll show you this shot now hopefully you'll see that the sycamore tree is nicely in focus and we'll move on and see if we can find something else to photograph hope you like this shot [Music] so [Music] so you might be able to tell here we're getting a little bit of light um it looks like the last of the rain has finished we've had a lot of storms here in the uk recently and i think we're due to have some four or five days of nice weather so that's this beginning here um however i don't think it suits woodland very well but what i'm gonna do is try and use it to my advantage in a way and so you can see here i found this beautiful tree it's stunning like so much character it's almost personified you know beautiful so i'm going to um take a photograph of this i think i think it's quite spooky um fits quite well with well we're just past halloween um and i actually think it works quite well with that fairly harsh light coming from the right hand side and hitting it so i'm going to get set up here i'm going to try and take an image work and like sort of isolate this beech tree um i think it's beach tree as a subject and really try and capture that character that it has so let's get it set up [Music] whoa so the sun is yeah it's definitely out now um i must admit to turn the brightness up a little bit there and i'm probably not the best of conditions for woodland photography um for my personal preference i don't like it when it's really bright but it's still going to work in terms of what this video is about you know um we're focusing on um focus and on top of that i think this particular composition is going to be quite nice when we do have better conditions perhaps fog perhaps heavy rain if i got here a little bit earlier on and to this particular spot when we had that rain i think this would have been quite nice and i find the light is a little bit distracting when you see the image you can make your own mind up but yeah of course exactly the same focusing technique here um and i think it's a beach tree isn't it this yeah pretty sure correct me if i'm wrong but yeah so much character and one thing that i like very much about it is the the darkness of the trunk and the prominence actually of the trunk by the time i've composed this shot and on top of that quite similar to the previous composition we've got a bit of a lean on this particular tree that's at the bottom of the trunk it's quite straight and then it begins very subtly to start leaning towards the left and then it's got this branch that arches all the way over and the sort of background as i've composed it here and i like that you know it's almost like this main prominent subject is actually framing all the autumnalness it's definitely not a word that's going on in the background and so i've decided um in terms of focus to focus on the beech tree again it doesn't need to be overcomplicated i'm not bothered if i lose a little bit of focus as we go you know further deeper into the image let's say um in fact i think that'll be nicer i think that'll um read a little bit of distraction from all the carnage that's going on in the background because there is a huge splash of colour and so that's what i've done and i've done exactly the same technique guys i've used the magnify button on my camera to zoom in on a certain area of the beach tree doesn't matter where it is and i've pressed my back button focus bang we are locked into focus and like i said before i can see um myself whether or not the the autofocus has been successful and then i can magnify back out if i'm happy and boom take the shot so you use the watch me regularly you'll see there it is very similar to what i used to do where i used to use the live view to zoom right in on my focal point and then i would manual focus myself with the focal ring which is a similar concept you know i can see myself whether or not it's getting into focus um but i find this way a lot quicker you know sometimes i'm struggling with the manual of manual focus with my eyes is it in focus i'm like messing about trying to bring it out of focus whereas if you can just trust the autofocus on your camera um you can do it that way and like i say double check whether or not it's definitely gone into focus which means that you probably don't 100 percent trust your focus on your camera but i don't believe that you should anyway but yeah that's honestly that's what i've been doing for the past three months and it works you know like i said i've never had any complications it's quick by the time you learn how to do it because you are essentially auto focusing you know um and yeah i think this well i was going to say i think it's going to be a nice shot i don't really think it is to be honest i think it's going to be a nice scouting photograph you know i can remember this tree i can remember this composition to come back to so composition's um set the focus is all dialed in and my settings f9 iso 100 and 125th of a second [Applause] so there you go that's my um focusing technique i will say as well that i mean i even do that if i'm shooting handheld i'm so used to doing it now it's a little bit more faff you know because you've got two hands holding your camera and you're trying to magnify in on your focal point and then use the button focus but it doesn't bother me you know it guarantees me sharp photographs and for me that's incredibly important you know so i follow that same routine with every photograph unless i'm rushing and there's some amazing light so thank you so much for watching this video i really hope you got some value from it if you're new to my channel be sure to subscribe if you enjoy landscape photography adventures and a few tips and tricks along the way and i'll see you on the next one cheers for tuning in out [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Henry Turner

Views: 181,748

Rating: 4.8812246 out of 5

Keywords: landscape photography, Nikon d7200, landscape photography focusing, landscape photography focusing tips, landscape photography focusing techniques, focusing for landscape photography, Henry turner, better image quality, sharp photos landscape photography, focussing landscape photography, where to focus, blurry photos to clear, sharp photos dslr, sharp photos nikon, where to focus in landscape photography, where to focus and how to take sharp landscape photos

Id: AeV-vY3nbDs

Length: 14min 9sec (849 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 05 2020