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From BP: Trouble Focusing? Zoom in – Accessible Photography Tip

Chris Gampat
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02/25/2010
2 Mins read

Last Updated on 09/10/2011 by

Softball Out of Focus
Out of Focus

Story by Timothy O’Brian of Blind Photographers on July 30th, 2009.

I have had some trouble focusing recently. Not with concentrating (not more than usual anyway), but with my camera. Being visually impaired, I have to rely on my camera’s autofocus. Using manual focus requires that I can see the viewfinder. I use the viewfinder to compose (mostly), but definitely not to focus. Unfortunately, autofocus does not always save the day.

Over the last month or so, I have shot a baseball and two softball games. I had more than a few instances where I thought I was focusing on a player in the infield (the pitcher, batter or a runner), but the camera instead focused way off in the distance, usually the outfield fence. This ruined an unnecessary number of shots that would have otherwise been submitted to the paper. The photo editor commented to me about this, letting me know that he needed me to sort out this issue.

Cliff Toss

I had tried the different focus setting on my D40X, closest subject, dynamic and point. I had no luck whatsoever in getting consistent focus out of the camera. An unlikely rescue happened however. A young DC filmmaker came down for a visit to understand better the how photographic workflow is affected by visual impairment for an upcoming short film about (you guess it!) a blind photographer (follow news of The Blind Photographer movie on Twitter). I showed Isaiah, the producer, the raw results of the baseball assignment and explained the issue. He suggested a solution that seems to be quite widely known (except to me). Borrowing from an article, Turn Off Autofocus – Do it Yourself! on Photography Bay, by fellow visually-impaired photographer Chris Gampat, “As I’ve learned when shooting actresses in short films while in college, it’s best to zoom in the tightest you can, focus on the exact point that you want the shot to be, zoom all the way out and then recompose your shot. This way all the detail that you could possibly want to make your shot work will be available to you.” I have tried this out with great results. I zoom in on the subject (or on something of equal distance) and half-press the shutter to engage the autofocus. Then, I either hit the autofocus lock or turn the lens to autofocus mode as I have not yet fully mastered the autofocus lock yet. Success (most of the time).

Originally seen here.

Tim O’Brian is a guest columnist on ThePhoblographer.
Legally blind, Tim writes about accessibility, photography and,
occasionally, both together. You can find out more about Tim on his blog or by
following him on twitter. He is also the founder of Blind Photographers.
blind photographers focusing How-to Learn problems sharp tips
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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