Master Focusing for GREAT looking PHOTOS - Digital Photography

1. 01 INTRO: Hi there. My name is in worth, unprofessional filmmaker and photographer based here in the UK Thank you so much for joining me. So in this class I want a deep dive into some different focusing techniques that we can use for muralists or DSLR cameras. Looking at many different techniques. Some include single point autofocus, continuous autofocus and manual folks in also recovering different genres of photography, too, such as portrait photography, wedding photography and landscape toll free. Also aimed to deep dive into some advanced methods of focusing, too, such as back button focusing zone, focusing on also focused stacking. Or these have their place in photography and, if used correctly, commute stunning results. So please come and join me on this class. 2. 02 CLASS PROJECT: for the class project. I really would love to see some of your work, some photographs that you've taken using the techniques that you've learned on this course . Please include a little bit of a description about the image that you've taken, how you've taken it may be your camera settings to on which techniques that you've used to take that image. I really look forward to seeing what you can come up with. 3. 03 FOCUSING YOUR LENS: there are many ways in which to focus your lens on. They all have their place in photography, depending on what you're shooting. These are some common methods of obtaining focus. Single point autofocus, continuous autofocus and manual focus also have some focusing AIDS to such a focus. Peaking half person, back button focusing and face and I detection. Single point auto Focus is as the name suggests, you choose a specific single point in which to focus your lens half pressure shutter button toe, lock the focus and then fully press to take the shot. When the shutter button is release, so will the auto Focus 1,000,000. You'll need to repeat this process for your next shot. You can move your focus selector around in the back of your LCD or viewfinder to place focus exactly where you wish to obtain fakers. This method works well when taking a photo of a static seen or a portrait of someone when they are relatively still. Continuous autofocus is similar to single point, but this time, once focused, is locked onto a particular part of the image. If either yourself or the subjects moves, then the autofocus will track maintain the focus on your selected part of the image. This is great for taking shots of people that are moving, such as a child running towards the camera or bird flying in the sky, many cameras of different settings for continuous autofocus that you can set depending on what it is you're shooting. I e. Sports or action photography manual. Focus is, as the name suggests, it's when we manually focus the lens, and we could do that with the focus ring here on the front of the lens just by rotating it whenever I'm manually. Focusing really makes me feel like I'm connected to the camera to the image Mawr feel more in control on. This is really good, and I think there's a lot of ways in which we can use manual focus. I like to use it pretty much all the time, and I'm shooting landscapes. I also like to use it for macron on portrait photography, too. To aid manual focus, many cameras have tools that can make obtaining focus much easier. Many cameras will give you the option of zooming into your LCD or viewfinder using this with focus peaking and you'll be nailing that focus every single time. Focus speaking is great is at odds, are highlighted, edged everything that is sharp within your image. Many cameras will allow you to choose which color is displayed. My cameras show the Peking in red, blue and white watch here when I focus how the red outlined changes as I move fakers. Focus picking is also great for sitting your depth of field. Watch how the Peking spreads out as I make the depth of field larger by increasing my F number or by making my aperture smaller. So let's talk about obtaining auto focus a little more. Essentially, we have two options, like a mentioned earlier weaken half press the shutter button to lock the focus, then frilly press to taken image. But there's also another option. This is called back button folks in Essentially, we can override the half pressing the shutter and assign that to a button on the back of the camera, usually the A F l button, but many cameras are now completely customizable. Its why would we choose to back button focus essentially back, but in focussing allows the user to use continuous and single point autofocus simultaneously. If we wish holding the back button continuously focuses the lens while pressing the button once focuses and locks of acres, so having the camera in continuous autofocus, if we just press the back button and release our finger, the focus will be locked similar to using single point and half person the shooter. Now we can recompose as much as we like without having to hold anything down. This is great, especially if you're shooting in aperture. Priority is this means the exposure will only be set when you press the shutter. So if we hold down the back button, we can continuously focus. The lens, which is great, essentially, is putting camera into continuous autofocus. So as long as we're holding that button down, it's locking and tracking. Our subjects have got somebody moving toward us. It's tracking them now, but Britain folks is grateful. Wedding photography. It really is, say, for example, we have a couple were taken, some portrait shots of them. I might want to just press on, lock my focus on them, press the back button. Once that's focused, locked down, I can try to take my portrait shot of them. Maybe I see something in the corner of my eye. Maybe some Children playing, and I want to move over and take some shots that then I can hold down the back button, focus on one of the Children on as they move around, because I'm holding the. But now we're in continuous autofocus. It's going to track the subject when we can just take as many shots as we want. While is tracking that focus. And I could come back to my couple again, taken to the shot. Just hold the back button interlock fakers. Because that focuses locked. I could just take many images, as I want, just by pressing the shutter button without having to refocus every single time back button folks in such a versatile way of shooting on is especially grateful Street photography and wedding photographer. Many newer cameras now have face and I detection. This could be incredibly beneficial for fast moving subjects such as small Children. Essentially, the camera will detect a face and track the face, always keeping in focus no matter of the Cameron camera or the person moves. The cameras that I use also have I detection, which narrows that focus even further, allowing us to use longer focal ings with the wider aperture like 85 millimeter 1.8 lens. I use so 85 millimeters on the crop sense of camera I use is closer to 130 millimeters, meaning that f 1.8. The depth of field is so shallow sometimes it's virtually impossible to nail the focus on I if the subjects of moving slightly so if I detect is used, it can really, really help when using a very, very narrow depth of field. 4. 04 TAKING PORTRAITS: with a portrait shoot. We can pretty much choose all of the folks in techniques we've just mentioned, so let's look into this a little bit further. When should we use which focusing techniques? Well, let's start with Single Point Auto Focus. Single point is great for taking portrait because it gives you control and allows you to place the focus point where you need it most. This actually be very accurate for focusing on the face or even and I it works so well that it's my method of choice for static portrayed shots, I think where it struggles, though, is when we have a moving subject. Say, for example, if we have a couple walking towards the camera, if we use single point autofocus, we would need to focus and shoot straight away. Because the couple is moving, they will be closer to the camera. If we failed to fire the shutter button almost simultaneously, the closer to the camera they are. The more out focus I will become. Work around here is to try to maintain the distance to your subject by walking backwards at the same pace. Your subject is moving forwards. This is still hit miss, though, especially if you're working with a very shallow depth of field Instead. If the subject is moving, then I would highly recommend using continuous autofocus. Essentially, we will focus on the subject, and because it's setting continuous, it will continuously focus on our subject, tracking the subject as it moves towards the camera. This means when we fire the shutter button, it will take a shot on. It will be in focus because it will be tracking the motion in the movement off the subject using face and I detection for portrays. It's also very good, especially if you're camera has the option to switch between faces. My older cameras didn't have this option, which meant that when shooting more than one person, it was difficult to know which face it will focus on first. Fortunately, my newer camera allows the user to switch faces, which is really, really helpful. So finally, manually focusing can be very, very good for portrait photography, especially when we've got challenging lighting conditions. Now I looked at back like my subjects. But when we back like a subject, essentially what can happen is that contrast can get washed out of the image I personally think this could not great, but this can be problematic to for some auto focus systems, especially the contrast to tech versions. So whenever on backlighting my subjects, I tend to use manual focus and zoom in to check. I've got it now. It imperfectly manual focus also works well for static portrays on when you wish to get creative with your subject. Manufacturing also works well for another technique called zone focusing, but we'll be covering that a little bit later. 5. 05 COUPLE & GROUP PHOTOS: focusing when we're shooting multiple people can be quite challenging, especially for couples on large groups. So let's dive into this a little bit further and look at the possible problems that can occur and how we can combat those problems to ensure that we get really sharp, successful images. First, let's talk about a scenario when we just have to. People say couple, how can we be sure to get the focus right? So whenever I'm shooting people, I like to make my creative choices first. This usually involves composition and light. When this is figured out, I like to determine how I wish the couple to appear. Sometimes it might only wish to have one of them in focus, but for couple portrayed usually or like to have both of their faces and eyes and focus. So essentially, if they're both stand on the same focal plane, this would be fairly easy to achieve. But if all of the shots from the photo shoot like this for their collection of images will start to look a little bit boring, having them standing at different focal planes means adjusting the aperture to suit their position. If both on the same focal plane than an aperture of F 2.8 would be fine. But if one is standing further back than I would increase my F number to bring both into focus, this will very depending on the distance in the focal length, the closer the camera is to the subjects, and the longer the focal length, the shallower the depth of field will become. In terms of folks in, I'm still aimed to focus on I. That is closest to the camera, though for group shots again, depth of field is important, selecting a high F name but well hours to get more depth of field and keep people in focus . If the group is fairly wide again, my method for focusing would be to focus on the person central onto the front of the group . Depth of field can then be altered by increasing the F number until everyone is in sharp focus for white grapes. I would avoid using a wide lenses. People standing towards the edges of the frame can become soft and distorted. I always feel it's better to stand further back and shoot with a tighter focal length, such as a 35 millimeter or 50 mark 50 millimeter lens. This focal length is more like the human eye sees things on will minimize distortion or make the image more natural. One thing to think about when shooting wide groups of the wide lenses. Distance. If you're three meters from the person at the center of the group, you will be several meters further to the people at the edges, so you need to adjust your F number to compensate for the larger required depth of field. Focusing essentially will give the best results for group photos. I would highly recommend using manual focus or single point auto focus. Alternatively, you could just use a single press if back button folks in. 6. 06 ZONE FOCUSING: zone. Focusing is a fantastic technique, especially for difficult lighting situations, where acquiring focus is tricky Now. We could use this for Seo first dance at a wedding or confetti throwing a wedding or even street photographer during the first dance. When the lights are low, sometimes autofocus acquisition can be problematic. The same can be said for the confetti throwing when the couple is moving towards you in their arms and confetti everywhere, the camera can really struggle in these circumstances. This is where zone focusing comes into his own zone. Folks in is a great technique. Essentially will be a manually fixing islands at a certain distance when selecting an aperture to create a large enough depth of field to get an acceptably sharp zone within our image. When a subject moves into that zone and we take photograph, there will be in sharp focus for a confetti shot in good light. I'm usually shooting quite wide, said around about 35 millimeters. Generally, it will take place outdoors during the afternoon, so lighting is generally good before focus at two meters and selecting aperture of F eight . My zone, which will be acceptably sharp, will be a couple of meters deep, So as long as I keep the couple in that zone as they're walking towards may, I know they will be sharp. I do this by walking backwards as they walk forwards the same for the dance floor shots, but this time lighting is generally a lot darker, so I'll be lighting the floor with a flash. I take a rough guess with the distance and setting aperture, which will allow me to get the whole of the dance floor in sharp focus. This is great is now. I don't need to let my camera for focus. I could just take the shot when I need to zone. Focusing works great for street photography to essentially, You can shoot wide manual focus that you required distance said Nah, picture to make your sharp zone. And then whenever a person walks into the zone, they will be in focus. This is great, as you can be a little more Kovar or even shoot from the hip because you never need to focus. You could just lift the camera and shoot when the movements right. I definitely recommend giving zone folks in ago if you haven't done so already. It's incredibly rewarding. On is a great technique when acquiring focus becomes tricky 7. 07 FOCUS FOR LANDSCAPES: the three popular ways, if you like, of focusing for landscape toffee. These are hyper focal distance focusing, focusing in 1/3 of the way into the scene on also folks into infinity. So first up, we've got hyper focal distance folks in the Hope Focal distance is the closest distance at which a lens could be focused while keeping objects at infinity acceptably sharp. When the lens is focused at this distance, all objects distances from half the hyper focal distance out to infinity will be except to be sharp. Next up is focusing 1/3 into your scene. I don't think this works well in a lot of circumstances, and it's easy to figure out, especially if you have your rule of thirds grid showing on your L. C D. Simply focus 1/3 in and adjust your aperture until your foreground and your background or acceptably sharp. Next, we got infinity focusing on for this method. We're focusing the lens to infinity, and selecting an aperture allows us to get our near foreground elements in focus. Again. This method works well in certain circumstances. It does have its problems. They some lenses may focus beyond infinity like my food. 23 millimeters F 1.4 Very few lenses now the hard stopped of old manual lenses. I've never found the focus by wire. Infinity stops to be 100% accurate, either. Problems with Infinity focus has been on going for decades. In fact, the reason for Canon making their zoom lenses white back in the seventies was to reduce surface heat from the certain meaning less expansion in the floor, right lens elements, which could change the point in which the lens focuses infinity. So although this method can work well, I think it depends on what you're using and how well you know and can rely on that particular piece of kit lens. Those three methods have talked about a lot fantastic, and I urge everyone's got there and give all three of them the try and just figure out which one works best for you and the kids that you're using. 8. 08 FOCUS ON THE SUBJECT: The approach I take is don't tend to think about focusing until right at the end. In fact, when I'm put in an image together when I'm making a shot composing shot, I find composition and light way more important than anything else. And it's those areas that I'm really concentrating on when I'm putting an image together. So our focus on peace and always jigsaw piece of the jigsaw together, trying to get the composition now down on when I have everything locked down on the tripod , more composition set up, then I'll start to think about focus. Generally. What I'm looking to do is to find a subject within my image or something that my eye is drawn towards first within the composition. And it would be that that I focus on and then work out my depth of field from there with focusing on the subject or the main focal point. Really, that's where your eyes drawn on. I like to try to make my images as natural as possible, and quite often, if you're looking at a scene and your eyes drawn to a particular point in the scene, say 1/3 of the way in or something like that, Then with your own eyes, naturally you will lose some depth of field. As you know, your eyes wander off into the distance because your focus in nearer to that part of the image. You know, it is the way our eyes work. We don't see everything sharp from front to back, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you don't want your images to appear sharp from front to back. But for May, I want to make sure that what I'm drawn to first is the point that I'm focusing on because I want that to be tack sharp. I want your eyes to be drawn to that, and I want that to be tax up. I don't really necessarily want to be focusing on the mountains, saying the background and then maybe having my depth of field getting softer. If you like working towards the foreground, I want to focus on what my eyes drawn towards. So that's what I do. And I just talk you through some methods in which I go about doing that. So, for example, this shot I've focused on the rocks here in the foreground. As to me, this is the most important part. When looking at this scene with my own eyes, I could see the rocks attack sharp in the mountains, naturally fall off very slightly. This is our appeared when standing in the field looking at the scene, and this was the look always aiming to capture at the time, focusing on the rocks are then selected an aperture to obtain sharp focus from front to back. So we're choosing the most important area of the image and focusing on that I'm able to select an aptitude that obtains acceptably sharp focus throughout the scene for this image , focusing on the rocks, FAA Everything sharp my foreground was only three feet away. For this image, again are focused on the rocks and selected aperture where everything was Tuck Sharp Report to focus gets the point where the eye is drawn to first for this image, with no foreground a tour. I simply focused on the mountains and everything was sharp. At 5.6, it's such a simple way of focusing and requires a little thought to be honest, and that really suits me in the way that I like to shoot so a few other things to think about if you're looking to get sharp photos, and that's physically how I focus. So obviously you've got the manual ring on the front of the lens and I manually focus all of my landscape photos. But I tend not to use the focus ring. What I tend to use is the A f L, but in the autofocus lock button. So with this lends, for example, it's got a clutch mechanism. But if I disengage the clutch mechanism, I can use a F L buttons. I'll move the focus point to the point that I want to focus on. I press in the NFL, but and you might just be able to see the button there on that will lock focus on that particular part off the scene. And then that is my focus locked. I can take many images as I want. With that on. The focus is going to remain on that point. So if exposure, blending or something like that, my focus is not going to change Andi. I think this is quite nice. It's a quick way of focusing. You can quickly maybe focus points. It's sort of a cross between auto focus and manual focus. But obviously you can tweak that as well, using the focus ring. If you need Teoh, I also use focus peaking as well, which is excellent, and that really helps you get your depth of field. Essentially focus peaking. You set like a highlight edge, if you like to. The sharpest parts of the image on this has several different colors red, blue, and I think white on it will put a little edge detail of color around the things a sharp. So as you increase the F number or make your aperture smaller, you'll see that the red focus peaking will spread out through the plane of Focus the sharpness throughout your images as you go from a wide aperture to a narrow aperture so you can really see what is sharp in your image. And this is incredibly helpful for manually focusing, especially if you've got if you maybe if you got a shot with a very shallow depth of field , it can be incredibly helpful to, and I use it a lot, So focal length is a big factor of how much of the scene we can actually get focused. The plane of Focus ex accept to be sharp will become smaller. The closer we get to our foreground elements, the same was said when we're using a telephoto lens and we resumed into the scene. If we have near foreground elements and distant mountains, scene becomes compressed in the depth field. That is, except to be sharp, very narrow. So we're using a focal length of 12 millimeters. We should easily be our to get everything in focus from front to back and depending on help close. We are to our foreground subject. Sometimes this could be achieved with the relatively wide aperture say, F 5.6. The more zoomed in we are, and the closer we get to our foreground, the more difficult it will be to obtain sharpness from front to back. Here we have three options. One. Accept that some parts of the image will be out focused to use a very narrow aperture and three to focus stock Option one is a good option if an out of focus area is something that you're looking to add in the image from a creative point of view. But then, if not, I would definitely choose Option two or three option two is to increase. The F number will make the opportune arrow. This will increase the depth of field you need to do your homework. Here they every lenses, a sweet spot more often than not, when a lens goes beyond, say, F eight or F 11 who start to see a significant reduction in image quality, this is due to the lens diffraction. Essentially, this happens when the light is pastoral, very narrow hole. The image will tend to get softer, so I strongly advise, you know, testing out all of your lenses at home. Just do some tests in your garden. Find out where your sweet spots on the lens because it can really make a big difference to the image quality of your final photograph. So you have done this with all of my lenses. I don't tend to want to go beyond 11 to be honest, if possible, a fight beyond that, I start see significant amount softness with the lenses that I use. So what happens if we way need to go beyond left 11 to get sharp sharpness from front to back? Well, that's when I start to focus that my images to conclude my method for obtaining focus goes like this. Number one first composed the shot focus on the main subject where the eyes drawn to first three set my aperture to obtain sharpness where I need it. Be sure not to go above F eight or 11. Number four. If front to back shop is not achievable, then I revert to focus talking. 9. 09 FOCUS STACKING: So if you need to focus, cycle, just briefly explain what it entailed. So focused Hacking is a method where we focus on different parts of the sea and take multiple shots on blend those images together in post processing. Now focus stuck in really comes into its own. When we zoomed in a bit S o, for example, if we shoot him wide, it's quite easy to get the full depth of field within the scene. It's quite get acceptably sharp area, all in focus if you like, but it resumed in to, say, 50 mil. That plane of focus acceptably sharp area is a lot less focused. I can really comes into its own here. I mean, sure, you can stop down your aperture to say F 22 or something like that, but then we get lens diffraction creeping in and you'll see if you look both of these images here. One shot of FAA near the shot F 22. You'll see how much softer F 22 image actually is. So we want to avoid that diffraction and folks tucking eliminates that on helps us get a really, really sharp image. So camera is also upon the tripod now. One thing would say is you need to make sure your camera is on a sturdy tripod. It needs to be locked down on. We don't really want to get any movement camera shake. So I use the two second time. But you could use a shirt to release cable if you like. Nothing to say is that you want to be shooting completely, Emmanuel. So your explosion needs to be dialed in Emmanuel, as does your white balance is Well, you white balance changing. If you've got say to white balance settings when you're back to post process in, it's gonna be very difficult to blend those images together. So basically we got here is I've got this gorgeous scene. Beautiful classic peak district scene. It's gorgeous dry stone war here. What going to dio is focus in two different parts of the wall because the wall here on the left inside of the frame is very, very close to the camera. A meter and 1/2 away you get in depth field is gonna be quite difficult for out the shot. So f 7.1 I'm focusing here on the left inside by the war again, a bit further down the wall and then again in the background. And that's giving me a sharp image from front to back. When I blend those images together, let's just have a quick look on the front of the camera. So on the front of the camera, we've got circular polarizer, and we've also got a three stop graduated filter. So the graduated filter is letting us bring that exposure down in the sky and allowing us to get the detail on this guy. Otherwise that would be lost or would have to bracket the image. All in all, this is ah, looking shot. The light is not too bad, actually, considering it's the middle of the day in the summer. So yeah, let's go ahead and take these three images now use. So these three images there was a little bit like changing in the image, but I don't think that's really gonna affect things. I rule. Last shot we took was a little bit brighter in the 1st 1 but I think I was gonna affect us blending these images together. So what going to do is take these images into photo shop. We're gonna blend these together manually using layers. It's a really easy technique, Andi. It doesn't take long tools I wanna do is highlight all of those three images that we took. Do this just by taking on the first image, clicking on the last image while holding, shifting that highlight all of the images Just right. Click on, then click Edit in and then openers layers in photo shop that's gonna open photo shop up on drop in our three layers into the layers palette stacked on top of each other. So here we have our three layers loaded into photo shop and you can see they're stacked on top of each other. The bottom layer here is our background shot. The middle one is our mid mid range shot. Where we focus down here on the wall on the top one here is the shot. What was just focused on this foreground element here? Just this war on the left inside that we're really close to. So what I'm going to do first is turn those off. Now we're just saying the shop where we focused on the background, so I'm gonna turn on my mid ground layer, so This is where we should focus down here on the the wall in the middle of the of image. So this area here is our sort of focused area. I'm, But I'm gonna do is at a layer mask to the area off the image state. It's just going to click on that, and that's dropped in a white layer mouse. Now, white will reveal everything within that layer. So if you work on the basis that white reveals and black conceals kind of remember how the layer in masked masking that works? So what is showing everything in that layer? If I paint on black on top of that mask on that layer is going to reveal what's underneath . So and what we're gonna basically do is selected brush black and increase solves my brush. Now on, I'm gonna reveal everything that's in the layer below. So basically, I just want to paint in the background, which is sharp. So I'm just gonna have you considered that things are changing a little bit. It's just a different light in the background. So just gonna literally paint over that part of the mask there that is revealing everything that is in the background layer. So now we have got everything here. These are mid ground focused image on everything. Above it is a background focused image. Now I'm gonna add in the full ground element in the game, going out a layer mask to that layer. Now that's revealing everything again. We don't want to do that this time. It's basically because money painting a very small part of this image I'm gonna invent a lame ass. So if you press to click on the layer and press control and I, that's contained a whole layer Master Black So basically, now that that layer is completely invisibles, this time I'm gonna be doing is painting in this area. So we need to change our brushed white Andi, just literally, you can see just change in that area now, just literally painted in. It's very near foreground element show. So yeah, so really quick and easy today. What a very nice shop image now from full ground element Writethru. Teoh mid Ground background. So yeah, it's a super super quick and easy today. I use this technique quite a lot. It's probably my most commonly used way of focus stocking just cause it's so easy today. What? You've done it a few times, It really is. It's just super quick 10. 10 GET INSPIRED & SHOOT: Thank you so much for taking this class of really Do hope you enjoyed it. I got something from it. Hope you enjoyed the focusing tips are talked about for diesel on mirrors cameras. Now, I would love to see some of your work. Like I mentioned in the class project, please digger ahead and upload an image and give me some information about that shot. Really? Do you want to see your creative process? So if you'd like to stay in touch, please hook me up on YouTube. I'm a plating weekly on there have been for sometimes there's lots of photography and video . Three related content on their on. Yeah, your time again is much appreciated. Okay, guys, And take care, and I'll see you on the next one.