Panoramic photos were the realm of the professional with the time and funds to create gorgeous super wide angle shots.

Colorado River - Stitched from 33 images Copyright Peter West Carey

But now, in the digital age, it’s not only simple to create panoramic images on your home computer, it’s become increasingly easier thanks to advances in software. There are still some general guidelines to follow to help you increase your odds of producing great photos because remember, you can’t fix everything in a computer after the fact. I’ve made a number of mistakes over the years in learning about panoramas and it’s my hope that these guidelines will help shorten your learning curve and give you a head start in creating stunning panoramic images.

1. If Your Camera Has A Panorama Mode, Use It.

Most point and shoot cameras beyond the most basic model come with a little used mode for creating panoramic images. This mode serves a couple of functions. First, it will use the display on the camera to show your last picture taken and then a live view of the next picture. This is done to help you line up you images and overlap them(we’ll talk about the importance of overlap in a minute). It also adjusts the camera to NOT change exposure settings in between shots as it normally would. This helps create even lighting through all the pictures, making stitching in the computer a lot easier (although a number of modern programs will also level exposure fairly well). The image below was created while using the Panorama Mode (Stitch Mode on some cameras) and taking over 25 images with an older Canon SD630 point and shoot.

BoulderRiver - Stitched from 26 images - Copyright Peter West Carey

2. Overlap Amply

Overlapping is one of the important areas in creating a panoramic image. Just one slip with not enough overlap can ruin an attempt at the grandest of wide angle shots. No one wants to see pictures of the Grand Canyon with a bar of white down the middle because of the failure to overlap properly. I overlap by 30% each time. Sometimes more. Most people say 15% works just fine. Experiment with your particular camera to find the sweet spot of overlap. Increasing the amount of overlap helps reduce “flaring” that happens when the software is forced to use all of the image frame, including the corners which may show distortion depending on your lens selection.

3. Keep It On The Level

Keeping your camera level becomes more important as you combine more images. If you’re shooting four or five images there isn’t much your need to worry about. But if it’s a monster 40 image shot, it becomes more and more important to keep things on the level. Think of it this way; your lens is a curved peice of glass. When held level, all parts of the scene in front of it come in and hit the sensor and roughly the same angle. But if you point that camera down, say 45 degrees you now have distant objects, like mountains in the background, coming in at a much sharper angle than foreground objects. For a single picture, this isn’t a problem, but for a panorama it creates a fan effect which is not so easily fixed in the computer. What this means is as you pan the camera left to right, the distant objects will fan out and may not have ample overlap. Further, they will be more distorted and curved because of the angle their light enters the camera.

This is best shown in my own example below, taken at Bryce Canyon, Utah, back in 2005. I attempted to point my DSLR down too far in order to catch more of the canyon. But what happened instead is the distant horizon became naturally distorted as I used a 16mm lens. This distortion was too much to over come in the computer afterwards and the result was the choppy image you see here. The foreground detail lines up right, but not the distant horizon.

Copyright Peter West Carey

4. Choosing Your Metering Well

Here’s another lesson I learned the hard way. If you are using a DSLR or other camera that doesn’t have the nifty Panorama Mode, you’ll want to set your metering mode to manual. Otherwise you’ll end up with an image like this.

Copyright Peter West Carey

Can you see the difference in exposure in the skyline? The computer was able to adjust well enough to the foreground canyon, but failed to even out the sky all the way. Had I set the camera to manual, this would not happen. It’s also important to even out your metering, meaning scan the entire scene making note of the aperture and shutter speeds your camera is suggesting, then pick one pair of settings in the middle, or slightly darker to make sure any sky details is preserved. With those shutter and aperture settings dialed in, it’s time to shoot away.

5. Check The Scene For Movement

Movement in the scene can be a thief of what would otherwise be a grand shot. Sometimes the blur, or doubling up of people, cars, planes or other moving objects is acceptable. But too many blurry spots (caused when the computer finds parts of the overlapping sections where things don’t line up) can ruin the shot. It may mean you need to take the images very quickly. And sometimes, that movement is just unavoidable.

6. Be Careful with Super Wide Angle Lenses

Referencing the image in #3 above again, my second mistake in that image was using too wide of a lens. If I had gone with something closer to a 50mm lens and made multiple passes at the scene, the distortion in the distance would have been lessened and perhaps the shot could have been salvaged. A great wide angle lens does not always produce great panoramic shots. Sometimes it’s better to let the stitching software do what it does best and make multiple passes of the same scene, with ample overlap, to create your masterpiece.

7. Look Up, Look Down, Look All Around

With new software you are not limited to just a single pass from left to right to capture your desired image so don’t be afraid to make more than one pass. Start with the initial pass from left to right (or top to bottom) and then move up or down to grab more detail and make another pass. Remember the overlapping rule above and how it will now pertain to not only the sides of the shot, but also the top and bottom overlaps. Keep it tight and your image can have the added quality of extra skyline or foreground features previously missed.

8. Don’t Forget Vertical Panoramas!

Vertical shots are often overlooked. The same principles apply to verticals shots as do horizontal images. It may help to turn the camera on its side or you may find keeping the camera in a horizontal orientation works. Experiment a little with buildings and waterfalls and then start looking for other verticals you can shoot.

These are just a few of the basic guidelines to help you not make all the mistakes I have made in learning how to shoot panoramas over the years. You don’t need fancy, expensive cameras to create nice panoramic images, just a little known how and practice.

Do you have any particularly helpful panorama tricks you’ve learned? Share them in the comments section below and feel free to link to examples of great images as well.

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You have a booking for portraits with an outgoing, dramatic, painter and beautician. It ends up being a rainy day, so the shoot will prove to test your creative expertise indoors without anything but your camera and an on camera flash. When you arrive at her studio apartment, you are relieved: there is light to go around. After a greeting and some small talk you quickly take stock of what you have:

Large bay windows that gently wraps the light around skin, and reflects in gorgeous catch-lights and a moveable chair. Perfect.

You know exactly what you are going to do.
You clear the space in front of the window and position the chair toward it. “Okay, let’s get some shots with you facing the window first.” Your subject sits straight up in the chair first and you take a few test shots.
Your settings:

• Manual Mode: Enabling you to get advanced exposure with highlights and shadows
• Shallow depth of field [2.8]: Throwing the window frame out of focus and isolating the eyes and face
• Moderate shutter speed [200/s]: To capture just enough of plenty light
• Fill flash: To fill in on the face with shots away from the window

After a few moments of experimenting, and commenting on the beauty of your model, you are ready to start.

You have your model relax into the chair. She leans back easily. She is facing the window limiting the room you have before her. Once again, you remember how much you are aiming for creative shots. You analyze your angles in action, determined to try something new.

“I’m going to get right in front of you here,” you begin and move some hair from your model’s eyes. “Lets have you look up at me right here…” Once she looks up, the light reflects in her eyes with luminous catch-lights.

“Gorgeous!” You exclaim, unable to mask your excitement. You show your model the image. She breathes deep. “Oh, I love it!”

Shot one. Oh yeah.

After a few more shots, you change things up. “Let’s have the window behind you this time. And we’ll go for full body.” You use a smaller chair this time, but don’t want to do a “normal” sitting pose. “Are you game for a little different?” Your model grins and nods. “Let’s do it.” You have her sit with her legs over the arm’s edge, and for extra slimming, coach her to cross one leg over the other. You arrange her arms in triangles, creating an elegant casual feel.

For this shot, you need a bit of fill flash – but not too much. You want to create some drama with the highlights and shadows. You flash the light up to the ceiling to gently cascade on your model without filling too much. To emphasize the dramatic mood, you have your model look down to the ground.

“Okay, here we go!”

It takes a few more test shots than before, but once again, you come out with the image you dreamed about. The lighting is exquisite. The pose perfect. The mood dramatic. And the contrast to die for.

Best of all, your client is just as happy with the image as you are.

After the shoot, you get a check, and load your gear back in the car. The rain continues to fall gently outside and you smile.

Who knew that a rainy day would facilitate with the perfect image of window light drama?

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Get back to base and you download your collection of shots, maybe send some to friends over the Web, perhaps make some prints for the album.

But take a good look at your work over the last year or so. How’s the colour? OK? So so? Or just plain brilliant?

If your answer was ‘brilliant’ maybe you’d better move on. You probably don’t need my help.

But maybe now you’re starting to wonder if the colour in your digital images is really as exciting and vibrant as it should be. If so, read on.

Jumbo Tail

Sometimes your camera’s auto exposure system gets fooled by the scene’s overall brightness, a hot sky or even a bright light that may not even be in shot.

Result? Murky whites, dull sky, flat colour.

One way to fix this is to adjust the camera’s exposure before shooting by using compensation, opening up the lens by a half or even a full f stop. Most cameras have this feature.

But, if you were unaware of the fault at the time, all is not lost. ‘Back at the ranch’ you can usually fix it in software by raising the general light level of the scene or, in such applications as Photoshop, adjusting the highlight and shadow levels.

Chevy

Now for some fun. This shot of a 50s Chevy was made in dull, grey light. Unusually, the car was virtually the only colour in the scene, with the houses behind rendered in greys and soft whites.

First, the car’s blue colour was given a starring role by setting highlight and shadow levels in Photoshop. Boring!

Then the car was ‘repainted’ in pink, by adjusting Hue in Hue/Saturation, then highlight/shadow levels reset.

Mustard or pink anyone? Same method: Hue was adjusted in Hue/Saturation, then highlight/shadow levels reset.
Go for it!

Sometimes I shoot pictures that have only one strong element: flashy colour. Two examples are the red car and the indigo wall. Love ‘em!

The only caution I can offer when making images that have an overpowering colour: set up a strong composition, with a forceful foreground element.

Tricks of the Trade

If you’re after accurate colour it pays to make the corrections at the time of the original exposure: if the weather is cloudy, adjust the colour balance setting; if you’re shooting inside, make the colour balance suit the prevailing light quality.

You can work marvels on colour rendering with even the most basic software.

Take care with shots of people; unless you’re after a Dracula effect, the human face is very unappealing when the colour is off beam.

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1. Keep Shooting

Expect to burn through a lot of memory cards shooting wildlife. While you may occasionally be able to presage the decisive moment in a wildlife shot, more often than not it will

be difficult to know exactly when the body position, the facial expression, and the composition of the image in front of you will all come together as an animal is in motion. Continuous shooting, extra batteries and many, fast memory cards will improve your odds of getting an effective image. If I find that only one in a couple dozen of my landscape images are “good” by my own criteria, that ratio might be more like “one in a few hundred” shots for wildlife, the first time I photographed polar bears I shot two cards full of images in less than an hour, and netted three portfolio images.

2. The Eye Has It

Like human portraits, wildlife portraits gain life by making a connection between the viewer and the animal, and as with humans, the window to that connection is the eye. When the practical needs of nature photography (supertelephoto lenses, wide apertures) leave the photographer with a very narrow depth of field it is almost always essential that the eye, if nothing else, be in focus. Our brains are almost hardwired to notice faces and to look for the eyes, if the eyes aren’t sharp in the primary subject of your photograph, most times, just won’t work. Bonus tip: A tiny bit of fill light from a flash (maybe 1.5 or more stops down under the “correct” fill flash exposure) can help create effective catch light in the eye to enhance this effect.

3. Understand Your Subject

With wildlife, particularly big game, learn a bit about your subject beforehand for the safety of

the animals, for your own safety, and for better photographs. Getting too close to many animals, particularly birds, to abandon their eggs or nest entirely. Your own safety is important too, in photographing polar bears from a Zodiac in Svalbard I knew that polar bears would not usually jump out into the water to attack, and working with a telephoto they mostly seemed uninterested in my presence. However, when one animal came to the shore and started bobbing it’s head up and down, I knew it was time to be out of there in a moment, this friendly looking gesture is the polar bears way of figuring out how far we are away. Spending time learning about your subject isn’t just about safety, either. The colorful puffins I photographed in the Westfjords of Iceland, I learned through research, are a lot more docile. While there were excellent shooting opportunities even in midday, near midnight (at dusk during that trip), it was easily possible to work within arm’s length of the birds, and I wouldn’t have known that without a little study beforehand.

4. Movement, Facing and Space

Another lesson from human portraiture we can use in wildlife photography is the idea of composing based on facing and direction. In general photographs

of moving animals are best composed giving more room in front of the animal’s movement than in back. Similarly, when an animal is looking to one side or another in a photograph, providing room in the direction the animal is looking usually results in a more effective image. If you can show what the animal is looking at (particularly if that too is interesting), that can be even more effective.

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So I figured that I would give you my insights on small strobes (also known as flash guns or speedlights) in this multi part saga here on DIYPhotography.net. So let’s get right to it, shall we.

Seven Reasons for Using A Strobe

For most of you that own a DSRL, you’ll have a built in flash to help you light your subject. So why, oh why would you even bother spending your hard earned cash on another flash that goes right on top of the one you’re used to using? Isn’t it overkill?

The answer to this is yes…. and no. Yes, if you just slap you new speedlight on your camera and use it like your built in flash. All you’ll get out of it is more power. And even then, if you use it in TTL (auto) mode with close subjects, you might as well sell it on Ebay (or to me ). Ok, so why get a speedlight then? Here are my top 7 reasons for owning them.

1. Power
Yes, it does crank out more juice than your built in flash, so if your subject is further away, you’ll still be able to throw some light on it.

2. Longer battery life
Your speedlight has its own set of batteries so you’re not using your camera’s battery for the flash. This means that you can get more shots out of one battery charge.

3. Angle of light
Speedlights have a tilting and rotating neck which allows you to change the light’s main direction. This means that you could bounce the light off a side wall or a ceiling to diffuse your main light source.

4. Keep that lens hood on
Since the speedlight is higher up on your camera, you won’t have to remove your lens hood to prevent shadows in your frame. There are some exceptions with some wide angle lenses though so test it out before hand.

5. Discrete auto focus assistance
Most DSLRs now have an auto focus assist lamp built in for dark scenes. Basically, if it’s too dark, to get good contrasts to focus on, a small light beam shines on your subject. If you’re shooting people, they’ll get annoyed or distracted by the light so forget candid shots. The auto focus assist on a speedlight usually appears as a red grid so your subject won’t even be aware of it.

6. Other features
Depending on the speedlight you purchased, you might have additional features that aren’t available on your built in flash like strobe (multiple flashes during the same exposure) or auto power zoom. Read your manual carefully to find those wonderful surprises.

7. Off camera lighting
You can actually use your speedlight off camera! This gives you complete creative freedom.

Seven Reasons For Using a Speedlight

Now, let’s quickly look at some of the advantages of using speedlights over studio strobes on location (outside your studio).

I’ve had a permanent studio now for roughly 2 years, but even before that, I owned a few studio strobes for my on location work. I now own 5 studio strobes with tons of light modifiers… and I see myself using them less and less on location. Why?

1. Setup
Small strobes are easier and faster to setup. They’re also faster to pack up.

2. Portability
Small strobes take a heck of a lot less room than bulky studio strobes. This means, smaller bags, less back pain and more room in the car for assistants or cold refreshing beverages.

3. Versatility
These suckers can go practically anywhere! You’re shooting your client in a room the size of your closet? No problem! You need to fake a lit desk lamp? Replace the bulb with your speedlight! You get the idea.

4. Cost
Each of my studio strobes cost me $700.00. You can get some speedlights for less than $200.00 with the average cost being around $350.00. Not only will the strobes cost less but also the accessories like gels and grids, just to name a few.

5. Sync Speed
Most studio strobes will sync up to 1/250 second. That’s fine and dandy for most situations but sometimes you just might need that extra shutter speed. Being a Nikon guy, I could theoretically sync my speedlights up to 1/8000 second. I’m not sure how other manufacturers’ strobes work with this function so please read your manual.

When Not To Use A Small Strobe?

Of course, they are less powerful than studio strobes and in some situations not powerful enough unless you use 3 or 4 of them. That’s when studio strobes make it into my car.

I hope you enjoyed part 1 of this series on Exploring Small Strobes. Stay tuned for part 2 as we ask ourselves: Why should we use speedlights off camera?

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Here’s a type of “What I wish I’d known back then” guide to building your photography portfolio.

1. Shoot for free.

This is completely obvious, so if you haven’t thought of it, please knock yourself in the head with a hockey stick compliments of yours truly. When you’re working to build your portfolio, you need subjects to shoot. Chances are pretty good that you’re working to build said portfolio in hopes that you will be able to get more clients, meaning simply that you don’t necessarily have subjects knocking down your door at this point. So offer your services to select friends and family for free.

2. Charge a minimal fee.

Once you’ve started to get a little buzz around your work with all the probono jazz, start to charge a minimal fee. You’ll get to the point where you’re drowning in shoots because you are the right price. . . $0, and that is how you’ll know it’s time to charge.

Be prepared to feel slightly uncomfortable at first accepting money for your services. I had an exceptionally hard time with this for a million reasons. Just remind yourself that you’re worth it, and then prove yourself right. Now that my sitting fee is 8 times the fee I charged in the beginning . . . I get a big kick out of how difficult it was for me to accept that measly $50.

3. Do a hard edit.

Always, always, always edit down. This is the mistake I used to make. I’d shoot like a bat outa hell, determined to get at least a handful of great shots from each sitting, then I’d deliver nearly all the images to my client on a disk. Thus the hideoderous image framed on my friend’s wall. The image was poorly lit, poorly composed and just plain YUCK. It’s an image that never should have seen the world beyond my computer. Period.

Remember that once those images have been delivered, they’re out there. 10 years from now, when you’re the best photographer the world has ever known, those images may still be gracing people’s walls. . . a very poor representation of your work and perhaps a hindrance to gaining future clients.

Maintain control over your portfolio by remembering that it extends beyond just what you compile in a portfolio album, blog or website.

4. Keep files well organized.

I’m a mom with 3 small boys (yes, I had my third child a month after my first turned 3. . . you do the math, but no matter how you add it up it equals crazy). When you’ve got kids to bathe, meals to prepare, homework to check, laundry to tackle, errands to run and clients to shoot, you have to work very hard to keep things in order. A fail proof system I’ve found for organizing my portfolio goes as follows: from each shoot, pull the images that you feel may be portfolio worthy into a separate file and an external hard drive for back up. Label both the file on your computer and the external drive with the same name. Within the file on your computer (and the one on the external drive if you wish) have sub files categorized by type of photography, ie. portraits, family sessions, weddings, landscape, maternity. . . bla bla bla, you get the picture. Then when you’re ready to compile your best images for a portfolio. . . guess what? It’s done already. Imagine that!

I didn’t do this from the beginning. And trust you me, it is a huge pain not to have a favorites file. . . digging through thousands of files to pick your best work once it comes time to say build a website, does not equal a pleasing way to spend the weekend. And I don’t need to mention the terror and dismay you’d experience should your computer crash without you being backed up!

5. Get an expert’s opinion . . . then be prepared to throw it out.

It’s good to get another respected photographer’s opinion for 2 reasons. 1. They can help you improve by telling you where your images may fall short. 2. They can help you gain confidence because they may see things in certain images that you did not. They may love what you didn’t allow yourself to for whatever reason. It goes back to that whole “we are our own worst critic” thing. Be prepared for the criticism, and be prepared to process it in a healthy, productive way.

Yet, also be prepared to throw it out. I spent a lot of time vying for the approval of certain respected photographer friends, only to find that sometimes their well meaning criticism hindered my ability to identify and define my own style (which is still evolving every day). Now, I have aspiring photographers sending me their work all the time asking me for my opinion, and I always tell them the same thing. “It doesn’t matter what I think.” And ultimately, that is 100,000% true. I will still give photographers my opinion but I always always try to make sure that they understand that ultimately it’s their art. It’s their passion. No one else can define it for them.

So, in the end, it doesn’t matter what I think, or what Annie Leibowitz thinks for that matter, it matter’s what your client thinks, and just as importantly, if not more so, what you yourself think. Always ask yourself this question: “am I proud of this shot?” if the answer is “yes” then it doesn’t matter what anyone else says.

This list is just a handful of ideas from my own experience. Do you have tips for building a photography portfolio? Great, please comment below.

Good luck and happy shooting!

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Now more than ever, the power of storytelling ought to be harnessed. But telling a story with photos takes more than just a skillful photographer. An impacting photo story can only be developed by skillful photographers who understand the emotions and concepts behind ever-great story.

The form of such a story is called the photo essay.

What is a Photo Essay?

A photo essay is very simply a collection of images that are placed in a specific order to tell the progression of events, emotions, and concepts. Used by world class photojournalists such as Lauren Greenfield and James Nachtwey, and Joachim Ladefoged to name a few, the photo essay takes the same story telling techniques as a normal essay, translated into visual images.

5 Photo Essay Tips

A photo essay isn’t simply for photojournalists however. Every human being is drawn to stories. Whether you are an amateur or a professional, the photo essay is a brilliant way to bring your images to life and touch your family, friends, and coworkers.

1. Find a topic: Photo essays are most dynamic when you as the photographer care about the subject. Whether you choose to document the first month of a newborn in the family, the process of a school drama production, or even a birthday party, make your topic something in which you find interest.

2. Do your research: If you document a newborn’s first month, spend time with the family. Discover who the parents are, what culture they are from, whether they are upper or lower class. If you cover the process of a school’s drama production, talk with the teachers, actors and stage hands; investigate the general interest of the student body; find out how they are financing the production and keeping costs down. If you photograph a birthday party, check out the theme, the decorations they plan on using, what the birthday kid hopes to get for his or her gifts. All of these factors will help you in planning out the type of shots you set up for your story.

3. Find the “real story”: After your research, you can determine the angle you want to take your story. Is the newborn the first son of a wealthy family on whom the family legacy will continue? Or does the baby have a rare heart condition? Is the drama production an effort to bring the student body together? Or is it featuring a child star? Is the birthday party for an adolescent turning 13, or the last birthday of a dying cancer patient? Though each story idea is the same, the main factors of each story create an incredibly unique story.

4. Every dynamic story is built on a set of core values and emotions that touch the heart of its audience. Anger. Joy. Fear. Hurt. Excitement. The best way you can connect your photo essay with its audience is to draw out the emotions within the story and utilize them in your shots. This does not mean that you manipulate your audience’s emotions. You merely use emotion as a connecting point.

5. Plan your shots: Whether you decide to sit down and extensively visualize each shot of the story, or simply walk through the venue in your mind, you will want to think about the type of shots that will work best to tell your story. I recommend beginners first start out by creating a “shot list” for the story. Each shot will work like a sentence in a one-paragraph story. Typically, you can start with 10 shots. Each shot must emphasize a different concept or emotion that can be woven together with the other images for the final draft of the story.

Remember that story telling takes practice. You don’t have to be an incredible writer to pull off a powerful photo essay. All you need is a bit of photographic technique, some creativity, and a lot of heart. And once you begin taking pictures in stories, your images will never be the same.

In part II of this series on Photo Essays, I will give a practical example of how I apply these techniques in a photo essay of my own.

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Have you ever gone into a shooting scenario and struggled to match your white balance to the available light? Have you ever wondered how to intensify the color of a sunset without digital enhancement, or create a mood with the color of your available light?

I have two words for you:

Found on most modern cameras, the Kelvin scale is a control feature forgotten among photographers. However, the Kelvin Scale can provide opportunities for fantastic creativity with a little bit of knowledge.

The Kelvin Scale ranges from 2000 – 10000. The coldest tone of the scale starts at 2000, casting a very cold bluish tint to photos. The warmest tone of the scale ends at 10000 and is extremely red-orange.. It may help to think of the Kelvin Scale in terms of white balances:

1000-2000 K Candlelight

2500-3500 K Tungsten Bulb (household variety)

3000-4000 K Sunrise/Sunset (clear sky)

4000-5000 K Fluorescent Lamps

5000-5500 K Electronic Flash

5000-6500 K Daylight with Clear Sky (sun overhead)

6500-8000 K Moderately Overcast Sky

9000-10000 K Shade or Heavily Overcast Sky

Just as your camera’s white balance will “compensate” for the way it “sees” the light in a scene, Kelvin Scale allows you to control the color correcting of your images point by point.

Why use the Kelvin scale as opposed to a standard white balance? If you can’t control the light tones of a room according to the standard “tungsten”, go Kelvin. If you can’t achieve the perfect skin tone of your subject by shooting on “cloudy”, once again, go for Kelvin.

Kelvin scale can also be used creatively for enhancing the colors of sunsets and sunrises. By altering and adding color with the Kelvin Scale, your images will achieve that “creative edge” with ultimate control.

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In this video Jim from ProPhotolife shows us a trick using two lenses that you might already have to achieve 1:1 magnification.

As he mentions in the video – if you like this technique you can purchase a reversing ring that will allow you to do it without needing to manually hold the lenses together with your spare hand.

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In this post I will describe six ways to get the perfect (and fastest) manual focus. As will all things photography, practice makes perfect – You make not have your first manual focus pictures right, but as you keep practicing, you’ll get better and better, until manual focus becomes a second nature to you.

1. Measure

This is by far the easiest method of them all. If you can measure the distance from the camera to your subject, you can use the Lens’s focus ring to manually set focus to that distance.

This method works best if your camera is set on a tripod and your subject is still. It is also great for indoor photography, old lenses that have great focus ring scale printed and close subjects. It does not work well in landscape photography, unless you can run very fast and have a very long piece of string.

2. Use The In Camera Focus Sensor Indication

If you look at the view finder, you’ll find a small little circle with two small arrows. (My good old Nikon D70 has it on the lower left side of the “view finder strip”.

Even when you focus manually, the in-focus indicator will let you know that you are in focus. Sweet, no?

If it does not work, you can try this trick. It is reported to work well.

3. Use a Focusing Screen

One of the reasons a lot of photographers are not even trying manual focus is because it is very hard to even see if you are “really” in focus or just almost in focus.

Most modern view finders are dim (at least compared to older “non D” SLRs. To add insult to injury, most modern viewfinders are small. The solution to the viewfinder problem is a focusing screen.

A focusing screen helps you verify that you are in focus. Either by having a split image (see picture on left) that unites only when you are in focus, or by making anything that is not in focus really, really diffused.

Sadly focusing screens are becoming more and more rare nowadays.

4. Pre Focus

If you know what you are going to photograph and you know where it is going to be, you can take advantage on this fact.

You can do one of two things: use a model to stand in and set the focus manually or focus to something very close to where you actually want to focus – for example the pavement on which the model will stand.

5. Set to Infinity

This one is especially effective when shooting landscape, stars or fireworks.

In those cases you can just move to manual focus and set your focus to infinity. If your landscape is indeed far away, it will be in focus. This is because things that are far off can be considered as infinity for any practical reason.

6. Use Auto Focus and Fine Tune

This method is extremely useful when you have a cluttered scene. You can use the camera autofocus
system to get you in the general focusing zone and then switch to
manual focus and fine tune to a specific point on the scene.

7. Don’t forget to come back

One of the common pitfalls of photographers who use manual focus is that once shooting session is over, they forget to go back to autofocus. This can have an artistic devastating effect on that session.

If you are in the habit of shooting manual focus, make it a habit to change back to autofocus at the end of each session. And also make it a habit to check your focus mode at the beginning of each session.

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