Good article on AF focus for portrait shots

http://visual-vacations.com …focus-recompose_sucks.htm

Excellent advice, and probably something a lot of people dont actually realise, myself included.

You learn something new every day, as they say.

Yep. Am very glad I can actually use all the focus points on my 40D now (i.e. I couldn't before with the Rebel XTi since the non-cross sensors would frequently fail to focus). It can be limiting sometimes as far as composition, trying to always align an eye with one of the nine focus points, but the shot needs to be in focus first off...

Hey, I didn't realise the 40D had all cross type focus sensors, that's handy! Because of this I wasn't using off centre points much.

Simple write up. Makes more sense and realise what my problem was.

Another benefit of of using other focus points is it forces you to look at the composition more. My composition improved a great deal when I started using the off-centre focus points.

For those who haven't discovered the feature yet, I use C.Fn-13 (1) to put the focus points on my joystick (multi controller) which makes it easy to switch when things are moving fast or other situations where I need an off-center point.

This has been discussed several times before.

The article makes some valid points, and also some not so valid ones.
A change of only 2 inches will not effect most shots, unless your shooting with a 50 1.2 wide open.

Interesting read!

How do you experienced guys deal with this problem?

Use the less sensitive outer focusing points? MF?

Moppie wrote in post #6155390
A change of only 2 inches will not effect most shots, unless your shooting with a 50 1.2 wide open.

I'm frequently shooting a 85mm f/1.8 at distances of around eight feet on a crop body. According to the calculator that gives me a depth of field of +/- one inch. Focus inaccuracies of a couple of inches can be very significant, even if you're not using a f/1.2 lens.

snuttebuff wrote in post #6155614
Use the less sensitive outer focusing points?

One of my favorite things about the 40D is that the outer focusing points are cross sensors also, so any of them work well.

snuttebuff wrote in post #6155614
Interesting read!

How do you experienced guys deal with this problem?

Use the less sensitive outer focusing points? MF?

When I need to critically focus I manually focus and ignore all focus points..

As was noted in the article concerning Focus/Recompose - the greater the distance to the subject the less problem this is. It's also less of a problem with a longer focal length lens when making a normally composed portrait - not extreme closeup.

I personally found Focus/Recompose more of a problem when using a tripod. I prefer to hand hold when possible & I do Focus/Recompose but I adjust my distance slightly by leaning back/forward very slightly until the image visually looks in focus & I have very little problems doing so. I learned this technique long ago in macro work. Also what yogestee said.