Recompose

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lionofjudah

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I've heard/read about locking focus/exposure then recomposing and taking a shot. Can someone please explain to me exactly what recomposing involves?

My understanding: moving subject material to different area of photo. If this is correct wouldn't your camera refocus on pressing shutter again or would it not give you certain blurry areas on photo?
 
Focus and recompose is for situations where you want to photograph something, but don't want it in the middle of the frame. Can only do this in single servo or AF-S on Nikon.

A portrait for example, you would centre the camera on their eyes, push the shutter down halfway, this will then lock the focus, you recompose the shot so the person is on the left looking right sort of thing and then take the photo.

If your camera constantly focuses when you have the shutter pushed half way down, you need to change the focus mode.

You can also do back button focussing, there is a thread already discussing this.
 
Dale_tem said:
Focus and recompose is for situations where you want to photograph something, but don't want it in the middle of the frame. Can only do this in single servo or AF-S on Nikon.

A portrait for example, you would centre the camera on their eyes, push the shutter down halfway, this will then lock the focus, you recompose the shot so the person is on the left looking right sort of thing and then take the photo.

If your camera constantly focuses when you have the shutter pushed half way down, you need to change the focus mode.

You can also do back button focussing, there is a thread already discussing this.
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Could you not just have person on left looking right etc and move focus point to be on that person? (As long as that focus point comes onto the person)
 
Pretty sure the main reason for not using focus points outside of the centre is that the centre focus point is more reliable. Therefore you are more likely to get pin sharp focus by recomposing after focusing with the centre point, than by moving to an outer forcus point.
 
lionofjudah said:
Could you not just have person on left looking right etc and move focus point to be on that person? (As long as that focus point comes onto the person)
Click to expand...

That is actually the best thing to do, especially on close subjects when using shallow depth of field.

As said, use recompose in low light due to the centre being more accurate.
 
Plus, apart from whether there is any technical advantage to one or the other, I imagine it will often be quicker/easier to focus and recompose than to select a new focus sensor. It might help to stop the camera getting in the way of the photograph, so to speak.
 
Chalcidicum said:
Plus, apart from whether there is any technical advantage to one or the other, I imagine it will often be quicker/easier to focus and recompose than to select a new focus sensor. It might help to stop the camera getting in the way of the photograph, so to speak.
Click to expand...

There are issues with focus and recompose, it only comes in with shallow depth of field, but it can catch you out if you aren't paying attention.

I've just got into the habit of moving the focus point around :)
 
Dale_tem said:
That is actually the best thing to do, especially on close subjects when using shallow depth of field.

As said, use recompose in low light due to the centre being more accurate.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
so far I have tended to only move the focus point around even in low light conditions, so I suppose I should try focus and recompose for this and note differences in pic quality.
For a higher depth of field is either technique better?
 
I use recompose as don't have much option as use a compact a fair amount of the time and as the DoF is large even at low apertures teh movement of an inch or two backwards or forwards as I recompose is not going to make any difference (to the point that even if I could choose focus points I wouldn't bother)
 
Chalcidicum said:
Plus, apart from whether there is any technical advantage to one or the other, I imagine it will often be quicker/easier to focus and recompose than to select a new focus sensor. It might help to stop the camera getting in the way of the photograph, so to speak.
Click to expand...


Maybe, maybe not I'm thinking ..for my five point focus point camera any focus point is one press of a button away ...so that's one press, or one movement of the camera, pretty close speed wise I would think.

I go for the focus point move over the recompose purely to eliminate any chance of smearing the DoFs sharp central plane myself...which simply also means I can make a mess of re-composing if I don't watch for the error. :gag:
 
It's not just the focus, it's also the exposure.

If you want your exposure to be perfect for the person on the left, but the centre of the frame is bright sun, you're likely to get a silhouette.

So you focus on the person, hit exposure lock, recompose and the exposure is still set for the left.

If you didn't hit the button, when you move, the focus would be right, but the exposure would have changed.

(This is under auto modes such as aperture value)
 
I use different methods in different situations

Hand held i use focus & recompose as it is infinitely quicker than faffing with changing the focus point in camera

On a tripod i will change the focus point in camera as it allows me to spend time composing the shot and not having to find that composure again after focussing
 
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