Center Spot Focus example

[JMS32935]

From October 2011, walking on a road through water-district land and looking for anything interesting, I came upon some local residents...

I took several previous pics where the composition and/or lighting just weren't right.
In this pic, I tried to frame the subject in a gap in close-in vegetation, but that idea didn't work out either (scaled down here to a decent resolution for publishing)...




But then I zoomed-in on the subject and got lucky, because lighting there was perfect.
This is the same pic cropped all the way down to camera resolution...



That's an extreme example, because zooming-in that far shows the graininess of the camera's sensor at it's worst.
Original exposure was unaffected by the surrounding dark vegetation and bright sky though, and that saved the pic.
(EXIF info is preserved in this pic, if anyone's interested.)

This lucky pic is another one of my favorites.

[OddBall]

Thanks for the examples. Great pics by the way!

So, all things considered, a good rule of thumb might be to go with center spot when a subject is at some distance? In other words, there is no point in using/balancing all the extra light that will be in the photo that isn't really part of the subject.
Did I say that right?

[Grey Ghost]

Originally Posted by OddBall

Thanks for the examples. Great pics by the way!

So, all things considered, a good rule of thumb might be to go with center spot when a subject is at some distance? In other words, there is no point in using/balancing all the extra light that will be in the photo that isn't really part of the subject.
Did I say that right?

I think the OP lens was at max zoom, 400 ISO, and a F 5.6. Tough shot. I have a similar one of a bear in the mtns. ISO 400 shouldn't be too noisy/grainy with that body ?

Everyone I know always uses 'center point' focus. I hope that Beadist will see this and respond. I've been a bit perplexed about it. I was shooting a group of 2-3 people the other week. I kept it on center point and took shots at Av mode - F8 and F5.6. What happens and what is the proper thing to do ? Select ALL focus points ? Or change F8, F9, etc...even for landscape..should you select all focus points or just bump to F11, etc...? How does all that interact and relate ?

[Giraffe (He/Him)]

(scaled down here to a decent resolution for publishing)...

If its scaled down, how is the next picture indicative of your cameras sensor?

Did I miss something or misunderstand something?

As for focusing, I use all my focus points, selected by the joystick.

Original exposure was unaffected by the surrounding dark vegetation and bright sky though, and that saved the pic.

Maybe, maybe not. If you're on Matrix metering it surely affected overall exposure. The ONLY way it wouldn't is Spot Metering.

[Giraffe (He/Him)]

You can tie your exposure to the focus point you select in the CF menu BTW.

[JMS32935]

Originally Posted by OddBall

... Did I say that right?

Yes, and seems a lot of my pics are that way. (Maybe I just like that long lens too much.) Things would be different if I wanted a pic of the landscape. Your horse pics are different in that you're a lot closer to the subject and they fill more of the frame, but that kind of setting might still work in your case.

Originally Posted by Grey Ghost

I think the OP lens was at max zoom, 400 ISO, and a F 5.6.

... and hand-held by an old guy. Camera is setup to use up to ISO 800 in "P" mode, and that's really stretching the ability of that body (which is lower-end consumer-quality for an SLR). I'm lucky the camera chose 400 in this case. That's one of the few times I wished I had a more capable camera, but this one still meets my needs most of the time.

Originally Posted by Thomas

If its scaled down, how is the next picture indicative of your cameras sensor?

Original-size JPG was 2.4 MB, and this didn't justify publishing anything that big. So, what I did publish for the 1st pic is essentially a thumbnail of the original. What I was trying to say is, you can't zoom down that far into the scaled version that I published.

The 2nd pic was cropped out of the camera original, and no further scaling was needed. What you see are camera pixels. That's all I got, I can't make it any bigger.

Originally Posted by Thomas

... The ONLY way it wouldn't is Spot Metering.

Yes, it was. I only mentioned center-spot focusing, but it was center-spot metering also. (They're separate settings in the camera, but think I've always used them together.)

Perhaps the subject should have been "getting results from a difficult long shot", and center-spot focusing (and metering) are just part of that.

[Giraffe (He/Him)]

but it was center-spot metering also

Center Weighted, or Spot linked to the focus point?

[JMS32935]

Spot...






You made me pull out the damn camera to make sure of the terms. Metering was "Spot" (vs "Center weighted" or "Matrix", and I had manually selected the center spot). AutoFocus-Area Mode was "Single Area" (other choices were "Dynamic Area" and "Closest Subject".