# pics of a series, all the same problem

[tawcat]

Hello.

I am posting three pictures that I've taken and curious as to what happened.

I am shooting with a Canon Rebel XS. I shot the pics with a Quantaray 70-300, I am sure at full zoom and full auto.

The first shot, Chip1 is of a chipmunk scouring for sunflower seeds; in Chip2 you can see the chipmunk; and in Chip3 you see Roxie our outside female cat, waiting for the chipmunk to come back!

My questions are: Why is the foreground in focus and the subject is not?

What do I need to do to reverse that so the subject is in focus?

Not trying to be a professional, just trying to learn more about a reborn
hobby.

Thanks so much. Any and all criticism, advice and suggestions are greatly appreciate.

http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp67/tawcat/Chip1.jpg

http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp67/tawcat/Chip2.jpg

http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp67/tawcat/Chip3.jpg

[lonelyjew]

Autofocus isn't perfect and your camera isn't intelligent. It doesn't know what your subject is so you can't rely on it. Your main problem here is that you're shooting on full auto settings so you can't set your focus point. Your camera is using all seven autofocus points and anything that is on one of the focus points is possibly what your camera will decides should be on. My guess is that your foreground dominates most of the area that your focus points are on so it maximized what was in focus at the points.

Lay off full auto, your camera's potential is being wasted on the green box. Learn the manual settings, they'll let you get a lot more out of your camera.

As far as criticism goes, the only thing that can be said is your subjects are not in focus so the pictures don't work. Don't get discouraged though, you'll be shooting great work in no time *Edit to continue sentence* if you work at it and learn to use your camera to it's full potential. I was talking to someone and though it would be rude to keep typing so I abruptly ended the sentence.

[ChunkyDA]

I agree with lonely. The EXIF data also says you used portrait mode and 248mm.
With those small subjects behind tall grass, you'll want to set the focus points to center. In the program mode the camera typically focuses on the closest thing. Check the owners manual for how to do this and experiment with M, Av, and Tv.

[Robert_Lay]

I don't see anyone mentioning this explicitly, so I suggest getting ahold of that little switch on the barrel of the lens and flip it from AF to MF setting and start playing with manual focus until you get the hang of it. You should find that all other aspects of your shooting can remain the same, if that's what you want.