Photography Beginner

Auto Focus. AF This is the system your camera uses to bring the subject you want to photograph into focus.

To activate the focusing in the camera, you need to half press the shutter.  This then activates the little focusing sensor points in the camera which use the contrast within a scene (the differences between blacks and whites) to bring objects into focus.

On the back view screen of your compact camera, you may see one or more little squares appear in the picture when you attempt to focus.  Once they turn green (or white or your camera may beep), this shows the camera has been able to focus on something and it will allow you to fully depress the shutter and take the picture.

However, if the focus points turn red, then the camera has been unable to focus on to anything and it won’t allow a picture to be taken until it has been able to focus properly.  You may have to re-press the shutter until it can find something to lock on to.  

Auto Focus works well in decent lighting, but it does rely on having enough light around to create sufficient differences in contrast, and on having enough contrast within the subject for the camera use.

You may find that when you try to take a photograph in a dimly lit place, the camera has a hard time focusing the photo and won’t allow you to take a picture.  This is because there isn’t enough light to give sufficient distinction between dark and light – everything begins to appear gray and flat and there is nothing the camera sensors can lock onto.

If this happens, find a vertical or horizontal line or edge near the subject and try to get the camera to focus on that.  You may have to move the camera slightly off center to get the focus to lock on to it but as long as you keep the shutter half depressed you can move the camera back onto the subject before you take the picture.

The other situation auto focus struggles with is when you are trying to take a photo of something that is very plain and uniform – such as a blue sky with no clouds, a plain surface with little or no contrast, such as a table top or concrete wall.

In these situations you again need to find something which is about the same distance away from you as the plain object, focus on that then re-frame the picture, again remembering to keep the shutter half depressed while you bring the camera back into the right position to take your picture.

You may find that your camera has several different settings on the Auto Focus, which allow you to control which part of the image or frame the Auto Focus selects to focus on.

One of the more common settings now appearing on compact cameras is Face Recognition. This allows your camera to search within the frame for up to 7 faces (depending on your camera type) and it then selects the most appropriate setting to bring as much of your subject into focus as it can.

It also ensures that if you are taking a photograph that has one or more people in it, the camera know that is what you want in focus.  It will then ignore or override anything else that may be in the center of the frame, the area of the picture that the camera normally uses to determine focus, giving the person the priority of focus.

There are advanced Auto Focus settings with multiple focus points and patterns which allow you to further control the focusing.  (Further discussion of Advanced Focus settings is discussed in another part of this series dealing with advanced camera controls).

Guidelines – These are a crisscross formation of graphic lines that can be turned on or off on the camera’s viewing screen but which do not appear on your photographs.

Guidelines usually show as a grid formation, which divide the image up into 4/6/9 or more equal parts.  They are used to assist with picture composition by showing on the view screen focal points of the picture, internal framing, etc.  (Discussion of photographic composition is discussed in a further part of this series.)

Are you getting to know your digital camera? Be sure to get it out and practice, practice, practice.

Sheila