Learning to Focus!

 Manual focusing has always been the bane of my photography.

Most of my equipment has been manual-focus, both film and digital.While manual focus does allow me more immediate control than AF points, it is also slower and can be quite cumbersome, especially with long, relatively fast lenses. 

Well, for now I'm stuck with mostly manual-focuses lenses, and I have been for a while; so I have started practicing manually focusing, and searched the great wide interweb for tips.

https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/technique/camera_skills/how-to-focus-manually-top-20-tips-144405

https://digital-photography-school.com/dont-afraid-manual-focus/

And, over time, I discovered what is probably the most important part of manual focusing:

No two models of lens will focus exactly alike. My friends Nikon 50mm AF 1.8D focuses far differently than my Nikkor-H f/2 for a multitude of reasons. But, if you learn it well enough, you can get dead-on focus faster than AF and a cheap kit lens could ever hope for.

Another couple of details: it's going to be harder to focus a longer lens (of course) and for this reason it's often easier to manual-focus on a crop-sensor camera using shorter lenses. However, a full-frame camera will have a much larger viewfinder - so this can be quite a tradeoff.

A third and final detail is, of course, pay attention! Choose the exact spot you want to draw your eye too, and unless you're shooting too closely or with a horrific kit zoom wide open, turn the ring until that spot seems tack sharp.

Some examples:

 

Nothing is in sharp focus! This is partially due to a bad lens being shot wide open. However, the photograph of the river has absolutely nothing sharp! While the photo of the alleyway is also not perfect, the foreground is at least reasonably in focus...

 

And, six months of practice later...

 

These are a lot neater! Far more is in focus!

 

This has been a skill I have been trying to perfect, and I still need far more practice, but the drill assignment has given me the kick I need to get started!