Canon Rebel Xti "little problems"...

>> I got a little problem with my Canon 18-55mm lens. When I try focus a certain subject, I'm having a hard time focusing it. It's because its rotating focus thingy isn't smooth to turn it counterclockwise and clockwise. Also got another problem with the focus... I tried making wacky pictures with my 400D. I switched it to auto mode and started to take pictures of people. the distance from the subject is not far... maybe less than 1 meter from the subject and I noticed that it doesn't focus the person's face but it focuses on the background. Any ideas how i could avoid that? =] I checked about the "metering" and the focus settings.. although I'm really not sure about those..

Tags: 400D, canon, eos, rebel, xti

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Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on June 27, 2010 at 6:29pm

Briefly, if you are trying to focus manually, set the switch on the side of the lens to M, it will free the mechanism to allow you to turn the ring easily. If the switch is set to A you will be fighting the auto-focus motor and it will win.

If you are using auto-focus, there are a number of spots in the viewfinder, probably little squares with dots in the middle. These are the auto-focus points. If auto-focus is set to Single Shot they will light when they achieve focus so you can see where the camera has found focus.

The lens has a minimum focusing distance which will vary depending upon the zoom setting. If your subject is closer than a meter, you may be too close for the lens to focus and it will focus on the background because that is within the focusing range of the lens. Try stepping back a little.

You can set the active auto-focus point (see your manual for how to do that) and by having a single auto-focus point, you can more easily control where the camera sets focus. This is useful for shooting a bird in the branches of a tree, for instance. Selecting a single auto-focus point also seems to help the camera focus when the scene has less contrast. This is something I have not found to be necessary with the more expensive bodies. Some people only use the centre auto-focus point and once they have focus they recompose to take the picture. You can lock both exposure and focus independently, again, see the manual for details.