Focus tip

When I stumbled across the picture above, I realized that I haven't published a tip here on the blog for a while. So here is my ultimate focus tip: decouple autofocus and shutter release!

By default, all cameras I know come into your hands pre-configured so that I activate the autofocus at the same time as the shutter button and focus accordingly. Super convenient! But also useful?

Personally, I cannot produce sharp images with any camera that is set up like this. Probably because I never learned it that way. And what Hans doesn't learn...

In my day, the focus was adjusted at the front of the lens and – logically – released using the shutter release. And yes, I can still remember the time when I focused faster on the 300mm lens on the sidelines than my colleague with his new AF camera. Before this slips into the “Grandpa tells stories from the past” category, I am happy to admit that today – at least in the Bundesliga – that is unimaginable.

Back to the actual topic: look at the picture above again. With the usual camera setting, you focus on the small bike and hold your finger half-pressed on the shutter release until the foreground is right and then press the shutter release all the way down. And hopefully you won't notice that the continuous autofocus (Nikon: AF-C / Canon: AI-Servo) was set - otherwise the foreground will suddenly be in focus. This can lead to cramps in the shutter release finger if you have to wait a long time for the right foreground. And the setting is no longer so "super-comfortable". And because I just noticed: AF-A / AI focus is not available on any professional camera. Why is that? Because it, like I mentioned, nonsense is. So I won't talk about it here again.

The great thing about decoupling autofocus and shutter release is twofold. Firstly, you can always use the camera in continuous autofocus, making it super flexible. It suddenly doesn't matter whether you're photographing a moving object or a stationary one. So you don't have to constantly change the camera's settings. Focusing always works in the same way.

So that the autofocus does not work together with the shutter release, there is an AF-ON or AE-L/AF-L button on the back of all cameras and corresponding options in the menus. At Nikon you just look at the individual functions and autofocus and then at AF activation, which must be set to OFF. Now you can only release the shutter with the trigger. To focus, you then use one of the corresponding buttons at the back.

Using the above picture again as an example: I focus on the small bicycle with one of the rear buttons. Then I can rest my fingers comfortably on the shutter button and when the appropriate foreground comes by, I release the shutter. Complete. I can even move the camera – as long as I remember the spot from which I focused. Nothing stands in the way of refining the image detail. And in many cases it doesn't matter which focus point you chose. In fact, I use the middle one about 95% of the time. That's the second advantage for me - if you haven't forgotten by now that I wrote about two things two paragraphs ago.

How do I photograph a moving object with this setting? It's very simple: I leave my finger on the corresponding button and release it when I want.

If you doubt that this is possible: 100% of the sports photos in my blog that were taken with autofocus were taken with this setting.

OK, I took the picture above with a small modification of the tip just described: I used a manual lens 😉

Just try it out. But give yourself some time: the change takes some getting used to.