Stay Focused - Selecting the best focusing method for each shoot

The longer you shoot, the larger your repertoire of subjects and assignments you photograph becomes. You start off photographing flowers in the garden, your neighbours dog, your sisters kids, your friends wedding and then before you know it, you're doing product shots for your friends new company. All this happens over time and there is one pretty fundamental skill that must remain paramount throughout this process; properly focused images.

Sure we've all been there, we've all taken that shot once in while which is slightly ‘soft’ (a polite photographers term to describe out-of-focus images), but it's a great shot so we keep it anyway. Even so, we would still of preferred it to be 'tack sharp'.

In focus images has been one of the most fundamental rules of photography right from the dawn of the craft. In the early 1900’s it was a craft in its own right but in the 1960's Leica introduced a rudimentary auto-focus system that changed everything. Since then of course auto-focus has developed dramatically and it's no longer a feature on cameras, its a given.

Modern Auto Focus

So bringing auto-foucs up to date we have a few options to choose from in our modern DSLR's and those are some of the features I just wanted to cover and when to use them. Both Canon and Nikon have very similar settings albeit incorporating different technologies the results are very similar. There are other brands like Sony and Olympus etc. that also follow suit but here I will be discussing the four main focus modes in Canon and Nikon.

This image was shot utilising the 'AF-S/One Shot' auto-focus mode on the camera. Here I focused on the models eyes and then recomposed my image so that she was over to the left of frame allowing for more space in the image where she is looking.

One Shot / AF-S

First off, you have the mode that’s probably been around the longest, Canon's 'One Shot' and Nikon's 'AF-S'. Both of these will do pretty much the same thing and they are predominantly used for stationary objects like model shoots (most of the time, more on when not to use 'AF-S/One Shot on model shoots later) and anything that doesn't require your subject to move around too much in frame. You half press the shutter in this mode and then you can recompose the image, for example you focus on the models eyes then recompose her to be on the left hand side of the image. This auto focus mode is the most common one and will get you through most situations.

Al Servo / AF-C

Next we have the step up from the single focus to Canon's 'AI Servo' and Nikon's 'AF-C'. Essentially what these settings do is continuously track your initial focus point and readjusts the focus accordingly. This setting is ideal for moving subjects like active children and pets that are constantly on the move within your frame.

AI Focus / AF-A

Finally out of the auto focus settings we have Canons 'AI Focus' and Nikons 'AF-A'. Both of these settings actually leave it up to the camera to decide which is best out of the other two focusing modes to use and will choose to continuously track your chosen subject should it decide to move or focus lock if you would like to recompose.

In theory then I needn't have bothered explaining the other two settings as surely this is the best of both worlds? Not quite, I personally have tested this mode a fair amount with stop-start subjects and although the camera does a good job of keeping up with them, it’s always more accurate to use continuous focus mode. The same also goes for its ability to determine when a subject has stopped and when to focus lock for recomposing. Personally I never use this mode as although it has the best of both it also has the worst of both.

So although I have just covered the three basic settings here very briefly, there is of course a whole host of other technological advancements in auto-focus I haven't covered. I know Nikon has extensive, matrix and 3D auto focusing features as well as most modern DSLR also incorporating the 'back button auto focus' which also helps with focus locking, but going over all of that is not the purpose of this article.

Manual Focus

The last focus mode I wanted to cover and one that is rarely used is the Manual focus mode. Now this mode strikes fear into the heart of nearly all modern photographers and that’s simply because they've probably never used it. Do you ever need to use it? That is something that only you can decide and is probably based on the type of photographs you take. If you only ever take portraits of energetic kids or fast paced sports then auto-focus is probably aways your go-to focus mode. If however, you shoot still life, architecture, landscapes and other detailed and relatively motionless subjects then manual focus is probably a good way to go. There's a few reasons for this; landscape photographers will want to find the hyper-focal distance of their scene to maximise the amount of 'in-focus' points in the scene, this is based on an equation so auto-focusing on a specific object is not always a good place to start. Still life photographers will usually have their camera 'locked off' on a tripod so they will not want to focus and recompose once they've set up the shot, its just far easier to focus manually.

There is however another reason to want to use manual mode on some cameras and in certain situations, and this is the catalyst for this article.

This version of the image was shot using the auto-focus mode 'AF-S/One Shot' and meant that after I had focused and recomposed the shot, the models eyes were left 'out' of focus.

The ‘Focus-Recompose’ Issue

I recently purchased a 85mm f1.8 prime lens and I wanted to test the lens out to see what the sharpness was like at f1.8. I predominately only photograph models so I set up my test and went about taking some shots at f1.8 using my usual AF-S/One Shot auto-focusing mode. When I got my shots back to the computer to take a look I was surprised to see that most of them were very 'soft'. It took a few minutes to realise my error and since then, I've adjusted how I shoot with these parameters.

Here you can see that the selected focal node is still situated in the middle of the viewfinder even though I have elected the outer most one when shooting in the portrait format.

I haven't done a lot of very shallow depth of field shots up until this point so I hadn't seen the now exaggerated results of my poor focusing technique previously.

At f1.8 you have a very, very shallow amount 'in-focus', so for example a head shot with the eyes in-focus the tip of the subjects nose is 'out' of focus. For the test I was photographing the model at 3/4 length and shooting up at her so my camera height was probably at her waist height. I was about 6ft/2m away from her and I was focusing on her eyes with my focal point in camera then recomposing my shot to capture the 3/4 length crop. The problem with most (DSLR) cameras is that although they have a lot of focusing points, they're all clustered in the centre of the viewfinder so even though I chose the outer most focal point I still have a dramatic amount of recomposing to do.

This diagram clearly illustrates whats actually going on when you recompose an image after focusing in 'AF-S/One Shot' auto-focusing mode. The actual part of the image that was in focus is now out of focus.

This isn't normally a noticeable problem when recomposing at f8, f11 and f16 but at f1.8 that dramatic shift in the focal plane means the resulting image is very soft around the models eyes. As I recomposed the shot it actually repositioned my focal point further back behind the model, meaning the back of her head and hair were in focus but not her eyes.

There is not too many ways around this pesky little issue, especially as you might not notice it on the back of the cameras little screen. One thing that did resolve it though was by switching to 'manual' focus. I could then compose my shot and manually focus on the models eyes resulting in a fantastically sharp image where I wanted it to be.

Granted there was a few things conspiring together here to really exaggerate the issue. Firstly I was shooting at f1.8; that’s always going to rely on critical sharpness. Secondly I was down low shooting up, this always exaggerates the focal plane shift when recomposing and lastly I was stuck with limited focal nodes. There are many technical reasons why modern DSLR's don't allow focal nodes towards the edges, a lot of smaller frame cameras like the mirrorless, APS-C and micro 4/3 cameras all have selectable focal nodes covering the entire viewfinder, but alas DSLR technology still isn't there yet. Until it does, it’s a good idea to be aware of what’s going on in auto focus modes on your camera and be prepared and ready to switch to manual focus when required. Manual focusing is a skill and as such will take a little practice, but with a little patience you should notice an increase in the hit rate of 'tack sharp' shots. Good Luck!

Your 'basic' 6 light set-up

Canon 1Ds Mk II - CAMERA

70 mm - LENS

F 11- F-STOP

1/250 sec - SHUTTER SPEED

100 - FILM SPEED

Flash - LIGHT SOURCE

This lighting technique is probably best referred to as beauty lighting and suits portraits and head-shots.

Granted the slightly tongue-in-cheek title to this technique teases that there might actually be a 'basic' 6 light set-up but truth be told this is one of the easier ones to get right.

This is a shoot that I did many years ago, way back in 2009. Back then I was looking very closely at other photographers lighting and reverse engineering their set-ups. This lighting is very famously used by Jill Greenberg in her crying baby project and then later with several of her animal projects. In fact looking at her work over the years you can actually see that nearly all of her shots are a variation of this lighting technique in one form or another.

Truth be told I'm not completely happy with my finished shots for this shoot and in hindsight and with more experience under my belt I can certainly see things that I would change. Firstly let me go over the lighting technique itself and then I'll come back and talk about a few tweaks I would make if I was shooting this again. I say 'tweaks' because it's not the set-up and light placement I take issue with but more to do with the power settings for each light that could be adjusted slightly.

The 6 light set-up: 1 hair light above, 2 side lights, 2 fill lights and 1 ring-flash.

The set-up itself obviously requires 6 separate heads: one ring-flash, one overhead hair light, two side hair lights and two fill umbrellas. In my set-up here I was using a beauty dish above as a hair light but this could be substituted by a honeycomb or snoot (space permitting), also I'm using two fill umbrellas but again these could be substituted for soft boxes. Something to note from my diagram here is that I didn't have a boom on the day so my beauty dish hair-light is just on a stand behind the black backdrop. This isn't ideal as it would of been nice to get more light on top of the models head, something that a boom would of enabled, also I was constantly fighting the threat of flare into the lens because that light was so far back and virtually pointed straight into camera.

This technique is probably better suited to portraits, head-shots or half body shots, the reasons for this is that its a very beatifying light, it wraps the model in light and it can be tricky to define structure with so much light. When you're shooting full body or even 3/4 length some of the lighting definition gets lost and in my opinion loses impact. Also this is a major pain to light evenly when showing the full body, the side lights would either have to be large strip-boxes or the sidelights would have to be set quite far back to provide even light. On top of this I dread to think of the 'spaghetti junction' of shadows being cast on the floor at her feet, that would not be pretty to retouch.

One of the most interesting points to note about this setup is obviously the use of a ring-flash. Anybody who has used a ring-flash will know that its 'drop off' of light is crucial to creating its tell-tale look. The light should appear to 'drop off' enough so as to allow for a slightly darker edge all the way around the body, its seen here in these images around the face and skin. Cleverly though this lighting technique counters that shadow nicely by transitioning to highlights thanks to the edge-lighting. This works particularly well here as the model has volume to her hair allowing for the lighting to remain separated. Something to be mindful of though is that when using a ring-flash your lighting can appear very flat and it takes some tweaking to ensure you still create shape and structure with your subject. Its for this reason that I'm not completely satisfied with the final images and I believe that by dropping the power of the ring-flash a little would of really helped to avoid the current slightly 'washed-out' look I have here.

The two sidelights and the hair-light above are metered a stop above (camera set to f11, edge-lights and hair-light metered to f16) and the two fill lights are metered a stop below (camera set to f11 two fill-lights set to f8) and finally the ring-flash was metered to the camera (f11). The tweaks I mentioned earlier are that I would probably dial down the ring-flash a little. There is so much light in this set-up that it is hard to tell whats doing what. The edge and hair-lights are easy its just getting the right combination of light from the ring-flash and the fill-lights that is down to personal preference.

Granted this lighting technique is not for everybody, firstly you need six studio lights which is not always an option but if you're renting a studio for the day and you have those facilities to play with then it might be worth playing around with it, especially if you're shooting beauty work. In Jill Greenberg's original set-up I think she actually used 7 lights, she had an extra one lighting the background of her subject. For me, I only had 6 lights and I wanted a much darker background to contrast the edge lighting and make the model really stand out in the image.

So if you're feeling brave enough and you've got plenty of time to set-up before the model is ready then give it a go.

Shooting Tethered...Without the Tether

Many moons ago when digital cameras were first introduced, one of the biggest changes from shooting film was the advent of the LCD screen. No longer did we have to pace up and down outside photo labs to see our shots, we could now see them instantly displayed on the back of our new cameras. This was not only great for us photographers to quickly check our lighting but for everybody else in the team too. The stylist could check for any creases in the clothes, the makeup artist could check uneven eyeliner, the hair stylist could check for stray hairs and the client can check they're happy too. That's fantastic, everybody can check that everything is looking perfect right there on the back of the camera without the anxious waiting for those tardy chemicals to do their job. Well in theory this was great but the novelty of a small crowd of rubberneckers jostling for front row seats behind me, all peering over my shoulder waiting for each image to appear soon wore off.

Menu display of how you would like card slot 1 and slot 2 to manage files

Finally came the long awaited introduction of useable tethering, I shoot over here in peace and quiet doing my job with a cable connected to a laptop, you all stand over there gawking at the screen, perfect. Well nearly perfect anyway, I no longer had to worry about people squawking in my ear but now I had to teach everybody how to go forward and back through the images, zoom in and out, rotating and so on. The software just wasn't intuitive enough for everybody yet. On top of that the biggest bane of my life was that damn cable that connected the camera to the laptop. Tripping over it, falling out of the camera, knocking things over, clotheslining clients with it, you name it I did it.

So now finally with the introduction of the wireless transfer cards such as the Eye-Fi cards I have the best of both worlds. No crowds breathing down my neck and no tether to break my neck.

Showing the iPad as it finds the wifi network of the Eye-Fi card

The way this works is that you can now purchase SD cards that wirelessly send your images to a laptop, phone or tablet. At present this technology only works in SD cards and although I know that there are SD to compact flash converters out there they are unfortunately known to be very unreliable when coupled with a wifi SD card. A lot of the modern compact digital cameras now will only accept SD cards and even most modern DSLR cameras now have at least one SD slot which is perfect as these little wifi cards are fantastic and I absolutely love them.

So in reality how does it work when actually shooting? Personally I use the Eye-Fi X2 4GB card (they now only do the pro version) and I shoot with a Nikon D600 which has dual SD slots. The first slot I set up to take the Raws and the second slot I set up to take the 'Basic JPEG's'. As I shoot, the camera saves the full resolution Raws to slot 1 and simultaneously saves small jpegs to slot 2 (the Eye-Fi card). Whilst the files are saving to the Eye-fi card its actually uploading them to my 'paired' device. This could be a laptop or even a smart phone but due to the issues with clumsy software not being very intuitive for the rest of the team I actually send my files to an iPad. The simplicity of this means that all but the most vehement tree-killer of the touch screen generation will be able to zoom, rotate and navigate through the images without any instruction from myself. On top of this I don't even need to be connected to a wifi network, the card itself generates its own and the free Eye-fi app on the iPad acts as a server which downloads the images seamlessly as they are taken. So to clarify, this works in the desert, you don't need to find a wifi hot-spot. The reason I mention that is because I didn't believe it would work without one but it does. Bear in mind though, it will download faster with a wifi network selected but I am only transferring small jpegs for review not the Raws so its still very fast without one.

The Nikon D600 synced with the iPad via the Eye-Fi card. The camera displays the Raws and the iPad is displaying the small transferred jpegs

Just so this doesn't sound like a Eye-Fi advert I know that Toshiba makes a FlashAir card that is actually supposed to be easier to set up than the X2 version but Eye-Fi has just now released the Eye-fi Mobi which is said to be even simpler and faster to set up than that.

They range dramatically in price as far as I can tell so its my advice to spend a bit of time shopping around. Also the memory size of the card has a dramatic influence on cost, I use the 4GB one because I only use it to transfer small jpegs. If you feel that you want more flexibility and will likely only be shooting where there is a wifi hotspot available and you'd like to transfer Raws for example, then you may want to buy a bigger card. I think I picked up my Eye-Fi X2 4GB card 18 months ago for £30 on eBay.

It's not a massive investment by any means so I would definitely recommend trying them out especially now that Eye-Fi have now just released the new and improved Mobi version. Being tethered looks great but the ease of shooting without the cable is a no-brainer. For me though more importantly the client loves to be able to view whats being shot and get involved, this ensures that things get spotted on the bigger screen before I have to spend ages fixing them in post.

Start taking studio lighting shots for under £25

Shot with a single silver umbrella and flashgun

I think we can all agree that we started out shooting at one point or another using the onboard pop-up flash. Lets be honest its not great, blown out images that show up everybody's imperfections with its incredibly hard light. Not a great look, and certainly not a great look if you want to be known for taking 'good' pictures. The next obvious stage was to get a flashgun. These powerful little guys slot on top our DSLR's and give us the much needed control we were after. We can soften the lighting a little, we can even bounce it off the walls or ceiling to soften the look even further. These flashguns are an events and wedding photographers best friend for sure. But for those of us that want the next level of control and want to take our portraits a little further and give them a really polished look we need studio lighting. That right there is a big box of minefields. Every time you go to look at investing in the world of studio lighting it seems like a pretty big commitment. Investing heavily in something that you're not sure you'd want to stick at or get the opportunity to use that often is certainly daunting.

There is another option though and thankfully with the global market for electronics being only a click away you can dip your toe into studio lighting for less than the price of most train tickets. Plus it can be done using a lot of the equipment you probably already have, especially if you're the sort of person who wants to get into studio lighting anyway, you're bound to of accumulated a lot of the necessary kit by now already.

This one is actually for a light stand but the tripod version looks almost identical

Chances are, like we discussed you already have a flashgun and there is an even greater chance you already have a tripod of some description, this doesn't even need to be any good either. If that's the case then we can look at doing a little online shopping and sorting out a great studio lighting setup.

Lets start from the bottom up, you already have a tripod so we need something to attach our flashgun and lighting modifier too. Search 'Flash mount bracket with umbrella holder for tripod' on your favourite internet electronics wholesaler and you'll be greeted by plenty of options. This £6.99 little gizmo sits on top your tripod and holds your flash as well as our lightweight and compact lighting modifier.

The umbrella, in my opinion one of the most underused lighting modifiers around. These lightweight and compact attachments used to be all rage before soft boxes came along but as soon as there awkward and unwieldy rectangular counterparts sprang into are world the umbrella got stuffed to the back of the studio cupboard. Soft boxes are popular for there slightly softer light but I actually quite like the umbrellas crisper less diffused light. Combine that with a silver interior over the white one and you can create fantastically crisp tones across skin. Search 'Silver photographic umbrella' and you're off for as little as £4.19. One thing to note, the larger the size of umbrella the softer the light (within reason, there are other factors at play) so have a look at the different sizes on offer.

This is just a straight connection to the camera, I recommend spending a little more and getting TTL version connector

Next and oddly the most expensive is a way to connect all this to your camera. The one that I have pictured here is actually just a straight piece of cable that just makes a physical connection to the camera. The one that I would probably recommend spending a little extra on is the TTL version. This talks to the camera and lets it know how much light has been used and when to stop etc. For this one search 'Flashgun TTL cable' this will bring up a lot a different options and for £13.73 you can get yourself all set up. Bear in mind that for TTL coupling you'll probably need the right cable for your camera brand, for example Nikon and Canons ones are different.

Everything we need to start taking some great studio lighting shots

So to sum up our extravagant spending spree,

Flash/umbrella bracket for tripod - £6.99

Silver umbrella lighting modifier - £4.19

TTl flashgun connection kit - £!3.73

Grand Total - £24.91

For less than £25 we now have all we need to start taking some cracking studio lighting shots.

Keep it simple, this is a classic one light setup known as 'butterfly lighting'

So now that we have it all lets get some shots, lets start off simple though first, we can always run later. Start off with a classic lighting setup commonly referred to as 'Butterfly Lighting', this gets its name from the shape of the shadow created under the nose when the light is positioned correctly. The same lighting is also referred to as 'Hollywood' lighting due to its beautifying look.

Positioning the light for this shot is key, the light should be above the subjects head height but not so high as to eliminate catchlights in the eyes. The light should be angled down towards the subject at a 45 degree angle to ensure the light spreads evenly over the face. How far away you place the light is dependent on the look you would like to go for; bring the light closer for a softer more feminine look or move the light further back for stronger shadows that can suit a more masculine image. Play around with this setup because there is a lot than can be achieved with this simple technique.

Model: Jaye

Shot with the 'Butterfly lighting' setup as outlined above.

Modding your vintage Polaroid Land Camera

I recently picked up an old Polaroid 320 land camera, and for a camera that's over 40 years old it's in fantastic condition. The reason I got the camera in the first place was to play with the old 'peel-apart' instant film. Polaroid as a company had a turbulent history and in the wake of the modern 'instant' digital images Polaroid filed for bankruptcy late in 2008. As a result the original Polaroid film is nye-on impossible to source but companies like Fuji and 'The Impossible Project' make a select number of very good replacement films. A quick search online proves its pretty easy to pick some up (new and expired film), the two main film packs I purchased for my 320 were the 'Fuji FP-100C' (colour film rated at 75 ASA/ISO) and a black and white version 'Fuji FP-3000B' (black and white film rated at 3000ASA/ISO) which I've yet to try.

If you're looking to purchase an old Polaroid instant camera then it's worth doing a bit of research, I unfortunately made a couple of less than successful purchases with the older land cameras finding out that the ones I bought didn't take the film made by any other company or that they had updated the film carrier during one model line meaning that newer versions of the camera didn't take the current film. Very frustrating.

Electrical tape, a pair of scissors and two AAA batteries is all this mod needs

Classic 40 year old Duracell 3V PX24 battery

Tape the two AAA batteries together then tape the white wires connector to the positive and the black wires connector to the negative

Finally though I picked up the 320 and that took the modern film perfectly.......but I wasn't up and running smoothly just yet. For a piece of technology this old you'd expect it to have more fundamental differences compared with modern cameras than it actually does, but it's essentially a light capturing device and that basic principle hasn't moved on hugely nor is it likely too. The one main thing that always changes though is how we power our technology and back then although it was still batteries they were quite different and it's not a simple case of popping to the shops to pick up some new ones. It took a 3V PX24 (never heard of it? Me neither), and although we can't strictly replace it like-for-like we can match it with a similar amount of power. The modern AAA batteries are 1.5V each so by taping two of these together and then taping the connectors on top we now have a fully powered vintage Polaroid camera. Now that I have power running to my camera I'm ready to shoot in ambient light. The camera has a remarkable (at the time) 'electric eye' which once the shutter is open, senses when the film has received enough light then closes the shutter again (the main reason for the batteries).

The Polaroids flash mount reveals a Post connection

If all I wanted to do was shoot landscapes then I'd be all set but I really wanted to use it in a studio environment with strobes. To do this I would really need to sync the camera to my strobes, this actually turned out to be far easier than I expected because to my surprise when I removed the onboard flash mount underneath was the same flash sync PC (Post Connection) receiver that we still use today. Like I mentioned before some things in the camera world just haven't moved on ('if it isn't broken, don't fix it'). This means that I can quickly and easily just plug my strobe light directly into the camera and I'm ready to shoot. When shooting with strobes you are probably going to want to light meter your scene to avoid costly trial and error shots. My Polaroid 320 has an aperture of f8.8 so with the 100 ISO film its pretty easy to achieve crispy exposed shots (bear in mind that the 'electric eye' still seems to work so keeping your ambient light down will help to eliminate blurring.

The first result using the FP-100c film synced to the strobes.Model: Charlotte Norris — The first result using the FP-100c film synced to the strobes.
Model: Charlotte Norris

Useful links:

Current official Polaroid website Polaroid.com

Fujifilm's ISO 100 FP-100C film

Fujifilm's ISO 3000 FB-3000B film

Other modern replacement Polaroid film packs by The Impossible Project

The shockingly designed Land List tells you everything you could possibly want to know about old Polaroid cameras, its just almost impossible to find what you're after.

Here's a useful link to a page that tells you what aperture your Polaroid land camera has: polamad.com