Fix focus point or automatic focus point?

John8

Hi all, another question - in a wedding environment, which is fairly dynamic, is it better to let the camera chooses the focus point or manually select a focus point - assuming a decent lens is attached to the camera.

zoomer

Always choose your focus point.

Moving Pictures

A lesson I learned from a great press photog a decade or so ago: "auto ain't right." He was talking about auto-contrast, auto-colour, auto-anything short of auto-focus.

John8

Many thanks guys. Would using centre focus point better than using specific point according to composition, i.e would I be better off using the centre point to get the focus then recompose with the shutter button holding the focus or do I just select the point according to the composition? It seems the centre focus point is bigger (the square in the middle anyway) does this mean it gives bigger focus area?

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks again.

John

zoomer

Depends on depth of field. If you have plenty of depth of field recompose works fine.
If you are up close to your subject where thin depth of field might take your subject out of focus if you recompose, better choose the correct focus point.
Generall you want the eyes to be in sharp focus so put your focus point there.

pathfinder

Use a single AF point chosen by you, precisely where you want focus, and do not move your camera after that, if possible.

Focus, re-compose incorporates focusing errors, that are quite significant at less than 8-12 feet, especially with wider apertures..

Focus, re-compose was used in the film ara, but digital is much less forgiving of focusing errors for maximum image quality.

We had a discussion about this topic a while back........in 2005.

John8

Thanks all, so to confirm my understanding - always try to use my own selected focus point when possibly.

Thx again.

Overfocused

The center focus point in cameras is the most accurate. Using it and recomposing will get better accuracy overall and better low light focusing. I constantly use the manual focus dial and choose the best needed for each shot as I go. Most of the time, center recomposing works best for me.