Silvermeteor Loc: South Carolina, USA

Do you have any idea how much time I invested to make this happen. lol. I wonder about equipment problems. It might be worthwhile to borrow and try the $100 Canon 50mm prime and see what happens.

Leon S Loc: Minnesota

A little trick I've used here and there is to carry a light weight cloth as dark as I can find and throw it over my head and camera. That way viewing shots on a bright day is not a problem. The same thing the really old old timers used setting to focus their cameras. I would think this would work really well for D5xxx, D500, and 750 users which have adjustable screens.

Silvermeteor Loc: South Carolina, USA

I think I posted this earlier. Canon T3i, EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens.

Settings: 30mm, f/11, 1/160/sec.

BudsOwl Loc: Upstate NY and New England

With this camera and lens you could easily have hand held. Then you probably would have been right on for focus.

sbschippers Loc: Baltimore MD

That's what I mean about equipment failure (or AF setting). It not your eyes or your tripod. You'd have to really TRY to not get focus at f11 at 30mm in the sun with any kind of working AF.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Tks!

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

Hayden gave you the answer to your "Problem" way back on page 3 of this thread. You have stumbled on something known as "hyper focal focusing". If you were to look this term up you might learn why your shot turned out as it did. You might also learn how easy this concept will make taking shots such as your fire engine. Hoods have nothing to do with what happened to you, but your thinking shows great promise. A hood is designed and used to keep sunlight out of the lens barrel. This prevents "flaring", and you have no "flaring" in your shot.

Silvermeteor Loc: South Carolina, USA

When speaking of a "hood" I meant a hood that covers the viewing screen at the back of the camera which is often overwhelmed by bright sunlight making it nearly useless. I believe you may be thinking about a lens hood which I had.

Hyperfocal may be the solution but unfortunately my lens is an el cheapo kit lens zoom which does not have range information on the focusing ring.

Thanks for your input. There is a lot of good info here.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

FYI : Hoods also shadow dirty filters so a slight haze won't appear on the photo. (Live and learn. LoL)

Madman Loc: Gulf Coast, Florida USA

My thoughts on your focus problem.

A suitable tripod does not have to be expensive - I paid less than $100 for mine. I also have a Hoodman Loupe to improve seeing the LCD outdoors. It is a great help, but the camera still needs to be at eye level. There is also an excellent chance that these photos could be taken hand held.

The focus issue might be helped by changing the settings on your camera. I'm guessing that it is now set for single spot focusing which means that the spot must be on the most critical part of the subject On some cameras, the location of the spot can be changed. For the example you've shown, the spot must have been on the building roof. Expanding the focus zone (more spots) would help avoid this problem. A focus spot must be on the subject.

I also require corrective lenses and have cataracts. I've been wearing soft contacts for many years - primarily because of the problems caused by eyeglasses when taking photos. I will get the cataracts removed, hopefully, in the near future.

Good luck, hope you get the desired results.

Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona

This is the reason so many photographers use back button Focus. You can focus and then reframe without changing the focus. In this case I would move closer or focus on the lower part of the door.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I'd wager that 95% of "focus errors" are actually the photographer's error, not the fault of their gear at all... although usually it's the gear that gets blamed. So, no, I think it's pretty unlikely that buying another lens will help!

If you had a single AF point selected manually - the center one in fact - and the camera in AI Servo focus mode (without back button focusing)... yes, the roof edge is right at the center of the image and is where the camera would focus.

One solution would be to use One Shot instead, pre-focus on the truck, then recompose while continuing to maintain half-press on the the shutter release... and finally take the shot.

Another would have been to use AI Servo with back button focus (BBF), pre-focus on the truck, release the button and then recompose... and finally take the shot.

Either method would work.

What you need to understand is how the two different focus modes work, their purposes and how to control them to make AF do what you want.

Your Canon camera also has AI Focus, but that really isn't a focus mode at all, per se. It's supposed to self-detect whether or not a subject is moving, then switch to using the correct mode. There can be a slight delay while it "decides"... and sometimes it chooses wrong or doesn't respond when a subject begins to move or stops moving. So I recommend avoiding it and just use the other two. (Note: if you switch the camera to the "Green Box" exposure mode, that forces you to use AI Focus, among other things.)

One Shot is intended for stationary subjects. It achieves focus, then stops and locks. As long as you maintain the shutter release button half-pressed, it will stay focused. In fact, if you or your subject moves you need to release the button and reapply it in order to re-focus.

AI Servo is intended for moving subjects. It achieves focus, then keeps re-checking and adjusting itself as long as you keep the shutter release half-pressed. This can present a problem if you use a focus and recompose method, such as to move the subject off-center, because it will instantly change focus to whatever is now under your active AF point after you've recomposed.

Back Button Focus is a popular modification that people use to give them more full control over the AF. It basically "removes" the AF from the shutter release and re-assigns it to one of the buttons on the back of the camera. That way the two aren't tied together at the shutter release, so you can operate them separately. BBF is especially popular among photographers who do a lot of action shooting... such as sports, birds and other wildlife. It allows them to leave their camera in AI Servo as their default mode, only needing to switch to One Shot for special purposes.

Another possible cause of focus problems is that many of today's zooms are varifocal designs. This means if you adjust the focal length, the lens doesn't maintain focus. It relies upon AF to correct focus after the focal length has been changed. Varifocal zooms are simpler to design and less expensive to manufacture, so many today are made this way. Parfocal zooms, that maintain focus when zoomed, require greater precision and complexity, so end up costing more.

So, if your zoom is a varifocal design and you're using One Shot, you must remember to re-focus (full release the button and reapply it) after any change is made to the focal length. AI Servo, one the other hand, will automatically correct focus "on the fly", without you consciously doing anything (so this is another reason it might be advantageous to set up BBF to be able to use AI Servo most of the time).

Looking at your images, at least in the resolution you have uploaded here online, it's actually nearly impossible to see the focus error. So, maybe those shots are more usable than you think.

One more thing... People tend to look at and judge their images way too large on their computer screens. An image from your 18MP camera viewed at 100% on a typical computer monitor set to its native resolution is like making a 5 foot wide print, then viewing it from around 18" away. OF COURSE it looks like crap, viewed so large and so close! Heck, the Mona Lisa or any other masterpiece would be nothing but brush strokes, if viewed so close!

Depending upon your intended use for the images, it makes more sense to evaluate them for focus accuracy and sharpness closer to their final size. An image that will be displayed online doesn't need to be all that "perfect", since it's going to be scaled down a lot.

There also are selective sharpening techniques that can help with minor focus issues. For example, in this case you could apply sharpness to the firetruck alone, and possibly even blur down the background a bit to make it "seem" sharper.

So, really, your image is probably better than you think. You stopped the lens way down to f11, which gives a lot of depth of field at a 30mm focal length setting, especially when shooting from a rather large distance to your subject, such as this.

In fact, f11 is bordering on risky... some image "softness" you're seeing on-screen at high magnification might actually be from an effect called diffraction... read more about it here, if you wish: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm

The "optimal" aperture with an 18MP camera and assuming an 8x12" print (no cropping) is f7.1. Beyond that, diffraction will gradually start to occur and increase as smaller and smaller apertures are used. The larger the image is viewed (whether printed or being inspected on a computer screen), the more apparent loss to diffraction will be. f11 is right there... it's the smallest aperture I'll use on my APS-C cameras... gives a lot of depth of field, but I know there will be some slight loss to diffraction. I prefer to keep to f8, though, if I can.... and if the planned use of an image were particularly large I'd make a point of it.

If you are being this particular about your images, I gotta ask... Do you have a "protection" filter on your lens? If so, you might want to try without it. There is always some loss of image quality to any filter... It might be very, very little with a high quality, multi-coated filter under ideal conditions... or it can be a lot with cheaper filters. I recommend not using filters unless they are actually serving a purpose... lens caps and lens hoods do a better job "protecting" a lens, anyway.

In fact, in this case a circular polarizer filter might have helped. Those can reduce any haze between you and your subjects, reduce reflections and help saturate colors. They especially will deepen the blue of the sky on a clear day and colors of foliage on an overcast day. Reflective surfaces such as a highly polished fire truck also might be rendered better when shot using a good circular polarizer (I recommend B+W MRC or Kaesemann, or Hoya HMC or HD, among a few others).

Finally, if not already doing so, get and use the matching hood for your lens. That will help with image quality in nearly all instances, certainly can't do any harm, and might even help with AF accuracy.

Hope this helps!

Silvermeteor Loc: South Carolina, USA

OK. I use BBF and AI Servo.

Trying to understand exactly what you are saying.

I did pre focus with the center focus point and then readjust the scene to suit me.

With BBF and AI Servo I thought that the focus point would remain on the logo on the door where I aimed it. Is this wrong?

Thanks for your help. I thought my old 35mm Pentax was complicated bet these new DSLRs have so darn many choices. Good when your young, fast and agile. Not so much when you are a senior citizen with failing eyesight and slower thought processes. LOL

alfeng Loc: Out where the West commences ...

Even though you are on a fixed income ...

.....Beyond learning how to target the area you want to focus ...

If you can live without the auto-focusing, instead of trying to borrow/rent a 50mm lens from someone/someplace, you may want to consider BUYING your own vintage 50mm lens (if you don't have a 35mm SLR) + a "dumb" hollow-tube adapter ...

Even though you have a Canon, if you are going to be using a "dumb" adapter, then I recommend you choose a Nikkor lens because you ever change camera bodies AND if you opt for a Nikon (yes, I know that is a sacrilegious statement for some people) because the lens will be functional in manual mode without an adapter (THAT can't be said about Canon 35mm SLR lenses on Canon Digital camera bodies) ...

.....If you can live with the manual, vintage 50mm lens then sell your kit lens.

.....If you can't live with the manual, vintage 50mm lens then re-sell the 50mm lens.

BTW. Are you certain that the lens which you have is capable of focusing as sharply as you want?

BBurns Loc: South Bay, California

Well said. It seems to be a never ending topic here.