Ok, so I bought my new DSLR (Nikon D3300), and I spent the first few days playing around with it in auto focus mode. I did this just to get used to the feel of the camera, the weight of it in my hands, and all of the different controls. The great thing about digital photography is it doesn’t cost much to take pictures…not like the old film days, where you couldn’t see your images until you actually paid to have them developed (how did we ever survive those dark ages??). So, I snapped away like a madman that first weekend, and I deleted a whole lot of bad, poorly timed, composition lacking images!
Once I felt comfortable with my new camera, I started searching YouTube for photography pointers and tips. Again, I don’t know HOW we survived ten years ago! It’s seriously amazing what you can find and learn in a matter of moments on YouTube! I ended up creating a bunch of playlists (i.e. Photography Tips, D3300 Tips, GoPro Tips, etc.) and added hours and hours of YouTube videos to each for later viewing. I also subscribed to a few professional photography feeds, so I’ll get updated any time they post new photography tips. Needless to say, I’ve got plenty of material to watch and learn about my new found hobby, and I’m excited to get started. But alas, let me get back to my post topic.
The first thing I wanted to do as an amateur photographer was to get into manual mode, and not rely on the auto mode. Don’t get me wrong, auto mode is wonderful, it literally does almost everything for you, which is good and fine for most people. But as a photographer, I want to learn about all of the different aspects of photography, I didn’t want some computer making all of the decisions and adjustments for me. So I decided in the beginning that I would disconnect myself from auto mode as quickly as possible. Step 1 is getting off auto focus.
Above is a great video that I found from Steele Training (www.steeletraining.com) that gives a great overview and some pointers on how to focus your DSLR camera. If you’re just getting started, this video tutorial is a great first step on getting out of auto focus and into manual mode. One thing I’d like to mention is that I’m glad I took the first few days snapping away and getting familiar with my D3300. This really allowed me to understand and know what the instructor was talking about when he was mentioning settings and controls. I highly recommend that if you’re just getting started, devote some time to playing around with all of your camera settings before diving in too deep. It’ll be a game changer!
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Comments
I was taught that most modern lenses are not made to be manually focused given that the focus ring is very small compared to older lenses that had a full turn to let you focus correctly. If you mean manual focus by choosing what focus point the camera will target, that’s another story
s8rlink – yes, thanks for clarifying. what i was referring to was learning not to rely on auto focus to select the focal point, and in some cases, to actually focus the camera itself. one thing that the instructor points out in the video is that he still prefers to use autofocus whenever possible, because his eyes aren’t that good. unfortunately, as i get older i’m finding that i’m actually in the same boat! i still shoot occasionally in manual focus mode, because sometimes it fits my composition and i want to be more in touch with the image itself. i found this video to be pretty helpful when i first started out on how to better control the auto focus mode. keep on snapping, and remember to feel, capture and share!