Focus test
I was in a bit of a panic Saturday night. I thought I had a backfocus issue with my 55-200mm lens/Nikon D5000. It turns out I have a couple of bad habits that need work. This image proves that my focus is pretty much dead on. I used the lens cap as a target to practice with before the girls showed up for our shoot on Sunday.
My bad habits are 1) Using the center focus point and then shooting several frames in continuous shooting after recomposing, causing the camera to refocus between shots off of my original chosen spot. 2) Not moving the focus point from the center position when shooting continuous. For example, moving the focus point to the eyes in a series of vertical portraits.
I've had my D5000 for about 17 months and still haven't mastered knowing all the focus modes and when to use them. I think I would pass a written test, but out in the field I think I would blow it.
I used Aperture priority for 99.9% of my photography. In addition, I used Auto ISO when photographing the girls on Sunday. I figured it would take a lot of camera fiddling out of the process. I don't like to fiddle any more than I have to when shooting people. I chose to set my minimum shutter speed to 1/160 and my maximum ISO to 1600. It worked out great. I think that setting probably doubled or tripled my usable photos. My only problem is remembering to turn that off when using flash. In that case the camera defaults to the highest ISO programmed when it's dark and then adds the flash to it.
Questions, comments or concerns?
Focus test
I was in a bit of a panic Saturday night. I thought I had a backfocus issue with my 55-200mm lens/Nikon D5000. It turns out I have a couple of bad habits that need work. This image proves that my focus is pretty much dead on. I used the lens cap as a target to practice with before the girls showed up for our shoot on Sunday.
My bad habits are 1) Using the center focus point and then shooting several frames in continuous shooting after recomposing, causing the camera to refocus between shots off of my original chosen spot. 2) Not moving the focus point from the center position when shooting continuous. For example, moving the focus point to the eyes in a series of vertical portraits.
I've had my D5000 for about 17 months and still haven't mastered knowing all the focus modes and when to use them. I think I would pass a written test, but out in the field I think I would blow it.
I used Aperture priority for 99.9% of my photography. In addition, I used Auto ISO when photographing the girls on Sunday. I figured it would take a lot of camera fiddling out of the process. I don't like to fiddle any more than I have to when shooting people. I chose to set my minimum shutter speed to 1/160 and my maximum ISO to 1600. It worked out great. I think that setting probably doubled or tripled my usable photos. My only problem is remembering to turn that off when using flash. In that case the camera defaults to the highest ISO programmed when it's dark and then adds the flash to it.
Questions, comments or concerns?