Hi there,
Today I am going to explain and show you the basics of what the different focus modes are in your camera and when to use them. But first I am going to give you a free bonus tip on how to get better images when hand holding your camera.
All manufacturers have these different focus modes but they may be called something slightly different from one manufacturer to another. I personally use Canon so the terms I am using maybe slightly different on your brand of camera. Modern day cameras do a really good job of focusing now and some even have eye detection where by the camera will lock in by some type of artificial intelligence and lock in on a subjects eye to get it sharp every time.
The three modes are continuous focus, single focus and manual focus.
Let's start with the continuous focus mode
So where do you use continuous and what does it mean well continuous is as long as you hold your finger halfway down on the shutter button the focus is going to continually keep tracking your subject.
Examples or where to use continuous mode would be tracking somebody playing a sport, running after a ball, riding a horse, or a fast moving car.
Photographing your children playing with the family pet dog together running about your garden, as long as you keep your finger pressed down half way on the shutter button, the focus will be locked onto your moving subject.
When you are ready to take your image then you can fully depress the shutter button. I use this feature all the time when photographing sports events or families and the children are running about. It works out really well and if you tried to use the other modes it would be impossible to get a good image, because by the time you focused on the subject and were ready to take the image they would have moved again.
Where do you use single focus?
Single focus means you lock your focus in and as long as your fingers held half way down on the shutter button the focus isn't going to move. The focus is not going to change until I take my finger off and relock my focus again so this is good for static subjects for example portraits, family groups or static objects.
If I wanted to put my subject into a different composition I could lock my focus and recompose.
Warning, if your subject moves forward or back, closer or nearer to the camera, especially with a wider aperture this will cause their plane to change. As a result you might need to refocus because if you lock in on something and it moves the focus isn't going to shift and you may get an out-of-focus picture.
The third option is manual focus
Manual allows you to manually override all of the focus modes so you can manually focus your lens.
As I have got older I have trouble manually focusing because I have started wearing glasses for reading and close up work and my eyes just are not sharp as they used to be. With the result that I don't trust my own eyes a lot of the time for manual focus.
But where I do use this feature is if I am photographing for example macro photography where the subject is very close to the camera, my camera may have difficulty in focusing so if this does happen I use manual focus instead. Another example of where I would use manual focus is if I am photographing the northern lights here in Donegal or low-light landscape photography, my cameras autofocus might have problems focusing in the dark because there is not much contrast in the scene so isn't able to nail that focus.
Try these different modes out and let me know in the comments section below which you like using. Let me know what videos you would love me to create, what are you struggling with and I will create a video to help you.
Let me know in the comments section below what you would love to learn or what your struggling with right now in your photography and I will create a video here to help you. Feel free even just to say Hello :) or let me know where your from, I love to know where my photography friends are based, I'm from Co. Donegal, Ireland! I will teach you how to get out of auto mode and shoot in full manual mode in easy to learn steps!
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