igor Loc: North Carolina

When I am taking a portrait the camera focuses and refocuses back and forth before it snaps the photo. What am I doing wrong?.

djtravels Loc: Georgia boy now

Need a little more information to help. One reason for focus hunting could be low light levels.

donrent Loc: Punta Gorda , Fl

Show a picture....

BTW are you any relation to Algore ? :-D ( Sorry, could not resist...)

igor Loc: North Carolina

don't get it

Leitz Loc: Solms

Sounds like you're using autofocus.

igor Loc: North Carolina

I checked my camera, I am.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

What camera?

What conditions does it do this in?

How much light is there when it does this?


What are you settings when it does this?


LOTS of info missing

Leitz Loc: Solms

It's easier to maintain your focus point by setting it manually, then compose your shot.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

The shot looks like you were pretty close to the subject. What camera and lens were you using?

Picdude Loc: Ohio

Auto focus in cameras depend a lot on contrast to determine where they try to focus. If the subject in the frame has very little contrast, the auto focus becomes easily confused and has to 'search' for enough contrast to lock in the focus. Most DSLR's are set by default to not allow the shutter to open if it does not sense focus when the Auto Focus mode is set. You can over-ride this setting, but do so at the risk of taking soft focus pictures.

If the picture you posted above is SOOC with no cropping, and your camera auto focus was set to center-weighted, you may very well have had contrast issues that confused the Auto Focus. Two things you could try would be: a) Back up (or zoom out) so that there is more highlights (light contrast) around your subject so that the Auto Focus can more easily determine your subject, then crop the image in PP to create the effect you are looking for, or b) Discard Auto Focus altogether and use Manual Focus instead.

MarkD Loc: NYC

If you were using continuous AF and moving the camera around the face the camera would keep changing focus. Try using single AF, lock focus on the nearest eye, recompose , and shoot, or manually focus on the eye.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Chech your AF setting. If you want to shoot something immovable, set your camera to AF-S. To capture moving subjects, use AF-C. If situation is confusuing, use manual focus.

Zone-System-Grandpa Loc: Springfield, Ohio

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You are not doing anything wrong other than ~> More than likely you are pointing the camera at a subject that is poorly lighted; a subject lacking a definitive juxtaposition of sharp contrast differences is often the problem whereby the focusing mechanism in the lens is unable to find an area that sharply provides differences upon a surface that breaks off from one surface to another of which the lens wants to focus accurately upon.. In other words, whenever there is poor lighting, the lens is hunting for something of which to compare a fine line from one area that sharply breaks to another area and if it cannot easily find such, the lens will rack in and out attempting to find anything that will enable it (the lens) to focus upon.. Whenever your subject matter is void of that which I have just described along with having poor lighting too, it's nearly impossible for the lens to focus quickly or it's nearly impossible for the lens to even focus at all.

Poor lighting can be either not enough light or, at times, too much light and should a surface lack changes in surfaces, the malady of which you have just described will often be that which happens.

igor Loc: North Carolina

Thanks for your replies.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

William, if you focus on her right eye, there should be enough contrast to allow accurate focus acquisition. Here is the issue, though - you post no information about what camera/lens you are using and what your autofocus settings are. It sounds like you have it set up to only take a picture when focused (focus priority), and you aren't targeting the correct focus point (her right eye) so the camera is trying to focus on her skin or being distracted by other elements in the image. But from what I see, the bright background was not an issue.

Lacking that information it is impossible for anyone to provide any meaningful information. But this is how I would have my camera set up.

Back button focus - aka "focus on demand." Take the focus function away from the shutter. Use a button on the back of the camera to acquire focus only when pressed.

Use "dynamic focus" (Nikon-speak) and the maximum number of focus sensors available on the camera and use the dial/multi function button/whatever, to move the active focus sensor closest to the feature you want to target for focus acquisition, in this case it would be the right eye, so as to minimize the amount of recomposition needed after getting the focus.
Shutter priority - make sure the camera is set so that it will take a picture when you press the shutter. (as opposed to when it is in focus).

Take the picture. There should be no "hunting" or anything else.