Please, Can You Focus?

Probably the first education a photographer needs to get is the exposure triangle - aperture, shutter speed, ISO. A full understanding of this isn't an option, it's required,

Is it really a triangle & worth thinking about in these days of stay at home (or otherwise absent) tripods?

Now, with zooms or multiple lenses (hand held!) focal length becomes an important(!) 4th point, making the entire thing what; something pyramid? or a square?

No offense meant @peggybair ; I am simply recalling myself in dim concert caves, reading my meter and thinking "Forget that 135/4!" which of course left an option to try the 35/2, (hopefully not at 1/30sec) with the given max ISO at hand. And everything else aside @davidrosen 's camera exposed well enough.

I don't intend to confuse beginners. I am trying to say:

• While the triangle exists as such; it tends to convert into a subconscious no-brainer in a whole lot of shooting situations.
  
• Each and every of it's 3 corners is very camera choice specific.
  
• Shooting landscapes at f45 is OK with a LF camera but generates noticeable diffraction losses on MFT.
  
• ISO? A film soaked some way has one. If you loaded a roll you have to live with your choice. - Digital cameras provide a range that is frequently divided into an usable and a desperate part above it.
  
• Shutter speeds to use depend on so many factors too. OIS / IBIS, focal length, subject movement, desired result, flash sync speed
  

My suggestion is to split the exposure related stuff into a planning phase (drill yourself to do so, while still "running") and have it almost right, when you reach the "gunning" phase.

Yay for video tutorials! Especially with new modern cameras. I wouldn't watch one to use a Nikon F / F2. Tell me how to open that bugger and I'll be fine, recalling to change lenses at f5.6 set. But yes, I watched one for my 5D IV and needed it badly...

There seem a bunch of folks putting camera specific tutorials on YouTube too (for folks who haven't recovered from their purchases).

It is very likely I was not patient and failed to recognize the settings. I blame the bird. I saw birds flittering about in the backyard and hurried outside to see what I could get. At that shutter speed it must have men motion blur as several have pointed out. So much for in camera and lens image stabilization.

I've not actually tried it and it seems almost painful to suggest it, but maybe this is a situation calling for the use of the iAuto mode (looks like it's a dial setting on the GX85, as opposed to a button on my G3)? If you're in a rush and just want to get the shot, maybe letting the camera's electronics handle it is the best option?

Otherwise, as others have said, practice, get a feel for what works and what doesn't. Instant feedback with digital is perfect for this. Spend an hour per week (or more, if you can) attempting to photograph a wide variety of different subjects, use the whole range of your lens(es), try moving things, still things, big, small.

One thing that you might find useful is to return your camera to a 'known state' after each session, so that when you next pick it up, you know what is set and you don't waste time adjusting things in the wrong direction.

For example, lens wide open, 1/250 second, ISO 100, these settings are unlikely to be right for the next shot (unless it happens to be a portrait on a slightly overcast day), but they're a good baseline to start from.

This overview article on automatic focus modes and performance in Photography Life is perhaps worth reading. It's not too technical and, I think, more easily readable than most camera manuals. It explains in different words some of the topics that @Ed_Ingold's and @JDMvW have already mentioned.

 

@davidrosen, I don't mean this to be in any way condescending (or insulting!) to your photography skills, but I've found that pretty much all of my own out-of-focus shots are down to me and not the AF mode. Occasionally, I forget to check which mode AFS/AFC I'm in. But by far the biggest cause of my out-of-focus shots is that - in the 'midst of taking pictures' - I see something and too quickly 'point and click' without giving the AF system enough time to re-focus (given the lighing/contrast conditions). Slowing down a fraction (making sure I first half-depress the shutter or use a back-button, see a sharply focused image in the viewerfinder and only then fully depress the shutter) has reduced the number of my out-of-focus shots, especially in poor lighting conditions.

 

Understanding and choosing the right AF mode/area is necessary. I personally only use a couple of basic AF modes. It took me a while to learn from experience (sport/action/event shots) that I didn't always give my AF - in whatever mode - enough time to work (re-focus). Maybe this has no relevance for you, but it's worth considering.

Thanks for the reference to Photography Life. I’m reading those articles now.

Well, we do not take photographs to become astronauts. A camera getting in one's shooting in such a way is a real pain and nothing can soothe the anxiety inside the digital sector. A rangefinder or a split-image screen would help, but that's another story.

I’d definitely like split screen. It was so easy to focus with my Nikon FTN. To be honest, I have trouble using manual focus with my digital camera even with the focus zoom feature.

@denny_rane : Maybe a part of the green leaf in front of & below the bird pointing at it?

@davidrosen Please name the camera you are using, so others can contribute their (hopefully helpful) experience with that specific model. - I am probably shooting something else.

Focus & recompose is an option but no cure all. I do it with my RFs since that's all I have at hand, but if your subject is only slightly moving and DOF absent, I recommend to keep the focusing spot on it and recompose by cropping the image later. With other cameras focus & recompose might be necessarry if only the central AF spot is either a cross sensor or (more) low light capable and that way superior than the others. (I have an old Canon lens that doesn't let me use any other spots.)

The rest gets very camera dependent. I don't get the feeling that continuous AF on Pentax / Samsung DSLRs is something to write home about. If you want to use it, figure out if your camera is able to do #back button focusing; i.e. you activate the continuous AF via a rear button and the shutter release gets operated independently. - That's the key to being able to focus & recompose with AFC switched on all the time. <- Warning!: This takes drill, to hopefully get into muscle memory some day. Plan a fortnight of "focusing through your living room" everyday, before you are ready to deploy that technique in the field. (Says a pessimist in his late 40s who hasn't mastered it yet.)

Eye detection AF? - Very camera specific and AFAIK only working with humanoid eyed subjects so far, one Sony aside.

AF clusters vs single spots: You take a lot of time to select the right spot, while your camera needs way less to pick a maybe entirely wrong one...

AF speed? - Marketed by everybody but sold by few for big$$s... Very camera and lens specific.

 

In another post you mentioned that you don't need many dials and control buttons. All I can say: On my elderly DSLRs I am happy to have a dial around the AF spot selecting arrow buttons to switch from auto to manual selection and a lever to switch from continuous to single AF. - Diving into sub menus to do these things takes ages and costs missed shots.

The more DOF you have due to stopping down or picking wider lenses the more likely I'd be to use auto AF spot selection.

The less processing power the camera provides for its AF the more likely reducing the cluster of active focusing points might speed focusing up.

For critical shots like your bird stacked behind foliage or wide open portraiture, I'd use single AF spots on my DSLRs.

 

Overly automated cameras do indeed cause problems of a special kind. In the old days I used hand held meters and knew my light before I pulled a camera out. While walking around looking for subjects I metered once in a while to keep my apertures and shutter speeds set properly and be ready.

With somewhat automated cameras I try to prepare them according to experience and guess work. Example: The Leica Ms on auto everything will drop shutter speed to 1/125sec before they crank up ISO. With a longer than 50mm lens I know I'll generate too much camera shake and dial in 1/250 sec or 1/500 manually. With DSLRs I have auto aperture ISO and shutter speed at hand and once again try to set something according to my needs; i.e. I might limit the auto ISO range and dial in a hopefully suitable shutter speed.

 

OIS and IBIS are great features and nice to have but I wouldn't rely on them to perform miracles in each and every shot. Maybe try to do some testing how reliable they are at which focal length and become environment (i.e. "exposure") aware enough to know your chances before you grab the camera.

Setting a shutter speed already whenever you change lenses makes sense. (Assuming you have a wide besides your birding glass. Or is it an endless zoom? - If the latter is the case maybe drill yourself to increase shutter speed while zooming in?)

Maybe your camera offers presets slots like C1, C2 etc.? Could it make sense to prepare those for your typical use cases? Or are there subject specific modes? - Some of my cameras offer these, but I am too lazy to figure them out. With a single camera it might be worth asking around which of these modes get used by others and work for them.

Lumix GX85. I have C3 set to f5.6-1/2000 sec, continuous auto focus, but this was an impromptu shoot and birds were perched on limbs and shrubs; that’s when focus became the challenge.