Life without Autofocus

   

Not a perfect photo, but a 
Northern Shoveler shot is Aperture Priority

 
A few months back, as I was watching online photography courses learning the functions of my camera I made a few posts about stuff I had learned. The posts had a bunch of photos to support them, but honestly they were not very good. The photos were only there to show how to blur the background or to freeze moving water in a photo. However, my photography passion is wildlife, birds being a big percentage of the wildlife pie.

   Once I learned my camera's functions I started to use them more and more and autofocus less. Now, I have to be honest with you I have made a lot of mistakes. For starters, the one I have done the most is change settings for one situation and forget to change them back when I was done. Countless times I've used a setting for shadows or low light and forget about it and when I have the opportunity to get a good shot in bright sunlight I blow out the highlights. Fortunately, I am getting much better at remembering this.

   Another mistake I have made is forgetting everything I've learned when I am rushing to take a photo of a bird that is moving away. I've "panicked" and set my aperture in the wrong direction a couple of times. I've set the brightness to the wrong side of zero occasionally. Again, these are things I am doing far more infrequently as I get used to life without autofocus.

   After one of my posts, my friend Bill Thompson whom is a great/ethical/patient photographer told me he usually shoots in Aperture Priority with the shutter opened right up. This means there is a lot of light getting into the lens. What you are focused on will be in focus while the background is blurry. And truthfully, this is how I shoot "most" of the time. However, I have noticed where there are exemptions. Last week I saw some Snow Buntings are Scarborough Beach on the rocks. They really blended in with the rocks and the rocks were colorful. I wanted to show them in the photos as well. So I went in the opposite direction and moved my F-stop as high as I could. This way, when I took the photo everything was in focus including the colorful rocks.

   One thing I've learned, there is more than one way to get the photo you want. Four different photographers standing side by side could get the same photo or close to it in four different modes of their cameras. There isn't "one perfect setting". I have not gone into full manual mode where I set the Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. I don't feel comfortable with ISO and I don't think I would want to play with the settings that much.

   I stay in Aperture Priority and Shutter Speed Priority all the time now. As I said above I usually leave my Aperture wide open. But I am using shutter speed priority more and more for moving birds. Swimming ducks on the water have been driving me crazy. They look like they are barely moving but so many photos come out blurry. So now, if I have good light, I'll shoot a duck at a crazy fast speed like 1/1000 of a second. That way it is sure to be in focus. However I need a lot of light for this. With the shutter only open .001 of a second not a lot of light can reach the inside of the camera. So I have to pick my moments. 

   I am also adjusting my modes when I have a lot of time. For instance when I was watching Iceland Gulls last week, I took pictures in different modes. Not only different modes but I set the "stop" on my brightness at different levels. The first photos I took the brightness was too high and the gulls looked like blown out ghosts. After I got that right I took photos in Aperture and Shutter speed priority until my little heart was content.

   Now, here is where truth and statistics collide, I have to tell you, not every photo is a winner. As a matter of fact my batting average for getting a "good photo" is way down. However, there seems to be some rewards too. Here is the stats as best I can tell. Lets say I'm at a good bird that I can photograph for a while and I take fifty photos. If I were in autofocus, maybe 10-15 of those photos would be junk and deleted instantly. Bird moves, the bird is blurry, or the camera focuses too late, etc. Of the thirty five left almost all are clear. The subject is in focus. Maybe four or five of the fifty, I could hopefully rate an A- and use on my blog or save. Hopefully over the course of a year I will get 4-5 wall hangers where everything is perfect.

   Now that I shoot in different modes the make up of those fifty photos is much different. Right off the bat I will easily delete thirty five. The bird will be out of focus. The camera will have focused on a twig in front of the bird, etc. This leaves me fifteen good photos compared to thirty five in autofocus. But here is the thing, it seems like at every photo shoot I am getting one or two "perfect" photos. Where as I was hoping to get four or five a year, I may get that in a day. It just seems that despite 35 garbage photos, that one or two great photo makes it all worth it. 

It is fun to come home and put my memory card in the computer while having supper. Normally one finger is on the "delete" key. And all of the sudden a photo stops me and I go "whoa!" That is happening on a daily bases. So despite my percentage of good photos going way down while experimenting with settings, my blow you away photo percentage is going up. I'd much rather have one great photo than thirty decent ones. This certainly saves me storage space on my external hard drive.

   So there you have it, the good and the bad. Learning to use my settings has had some ups and downs. I am nowhere near the end of my learning curve. I'm sure I'll still forget everything as I'm rushing for a photo. When it gets nice out, I'm sure my fish photos will be in Autofocus. I am not going to make a suffocating fish wait for me to play with my Aperture. Autofocus and release. However for birding, I think Aperture and Shutter Priority are where I'm going to stay. For one, adjusting the settings and getting it right is fun in itself. When that great photo stops me in my tracks it makes all those deleted photos totally worth it.