I came across this information on Chris Humphreys’ blog last summer but I wasn’t ready to put it to use yet. I just came across it again on Melissa Jill’s blog yesterday. Chris talks about setting up the camera to use the * button on the back to focus instead of the shutter button. He says the idea is to seperate the shutter function from the focus function. You can read his whole blog post here. Melissa Jill talks about how she feels her focus is much more accurate with this set up. You can read her post here.
With professionals like these using this function, I thought I should at least try it. Afterall, tack sharp photographs are what we’re after, right? I just set my camera up with this function today. It’s interesting and like Melissa says, it will take some getting used to.
When I was reading through my manual, I took note of the AE lock function too. I was thinking about how useful this is for situations with backlighting. I plan to focus on practicing with that feature in the coming week.
The next assignment in class is to set up my camera at 1/60 shutter speed and then take a landscape photo at each available aperature on my camera. As soon at the weather cooperates with me and I have a little bit of time to myself, I will tackle that assignment and post about it. I keep reading that Manual mode is challenging in the beginning but at some point something just clicks for each photographer and it just starts to make sense. I’m not anywhere close to it making sense yet but I intend to keep trying until it clicks.
I feel like my feeble brain might be trying to tackle a wee bit too much right now with these three focus areas. But that is where my focus will be this week.
a) getting used to this back button focus set up
b) attempting to get a couple shots with the AE lock to see proper exposure on my subject in a backlit situation
c) attempting to master a proper exposure in Manual mode before my subjects (usually my little kids) move away and the shot is gone.
Stay focused friends!
