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      05-14-2016, 08:47 PM   #5091
dcstep
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mik3ymomo View Post
I would like to add that there are times when you will need to manually focus. If you shoot at night and set up long exposures, do time lapse's and light painting you will very likely need or will absolutely need to manually focus the lens and completely shut off the autofocus system.

Also the autofocus systems are good but they rely on contrast and sometimes you won't get really good contrast. Lastly some lenses have such razor thin depth of field like say a 50mm F1.2 or an 85 F1.4 that you will want to focus it yourself for the best results.

For instance; shooting people. It's difficult to get the camera to focus directly on the eye. It wants to pick up the cheek or nose or forehead/hair etc. with a very thin DOF you run the risk of getting the eyes soft in the shot. My opinion is that the eyes should be the sharpest part of a portrait or animal.
The more you shoot with your equipment the more you will realize it's shortfalls and do your best to work around them for the best images you can produce.
I'm not "getting" your problem. Are you using single-point AF and steering the point around (to the eye)? Alternatively, you can focus on the eye, using center-point and then lock focus and recompose. Getting human eyes in focus should be a piece of cake.

I find that you need enough DOF to get an eye in focus and also the end of the nose. Anything behind the eyes tends to be acceptable. Preview to see actual DOF. You can still get good bokeh at f/4, if you need the DOF.
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