MANUAL Focus with Mirrorless Camera

Out of focus

Out of focus

Out of focus again

Out of focus again and again!!!

Can't focus underwater by auto mode, why not try MANUAL FOCUS?

I believe many divers who use mirrorless cameras and newly started to take macro pictures have the difficulty to focus on subjects. Using a mirrorless camera without a viewfinder, we have to take pictures by LCD monitor. This is one of the disadvantages of using mirrorless because it consumes battery faster. However, I take it as an advantage because it makes me apply manual focusing more easily.

I went diving couple of weeks ago and practiced manual focusing with my Panasonic GF1. The picture below doesn't show clearly what the subject was, but it's a good example of manual focusing. Actually it's a crab hiding in a hard coral. If I used auto focus, I believe it would have focused on the coral, not the crab. In other words, it's easier to focus on your desired spot by manual if that subject is not the closest object to your camera.

I am not talking about adjusting the focus ring, but moving my camera forward or backward to the subject a little bit to change the focus zone. Because of using the LCD monitor to take pictures, I can see the changes easily when I move the camera. The better targets for practicing this method are the creatures not moving a lot, like the small conch below.

I also took some pictures of Anemone Fish by this manual focus way. Even though Anemone Fish don't stay still, they usually don't swim far away from the anemone they live. Besides, some of the individuals have the behavior to demonstrate to the objects near them. So I placed the focus point at one random spot and kept looking at the monitor. When I felt the fish was going to fall in the focus area, I pressed the shutter bottom immediately (remark 1). Honestly, the fish was out of the focus most of the time because the focus zone is not so wide while taking macro pictures. Thus, I took one or two more shoots right after the first one as long the recharging of my strobe was fast enough (remark 2).

Indeed, it's a little difficult to take pictures by manual focusing because our eyes are not sharp as machines. Sometime I thought the shoot was vivid when I checked the camera monitor underwater, but actually it's out of the focus when I checked it on a computer monitor. For example, I was supposed to focus on the Goby on the left shows on the picture below, but turned out the eye of the Goby on the right is much more clear.

But It's alright! It's not possible to stay still underwater even though there is no current at all. Just take few more shoots and maybe we will have some good pictures. Sometime, wonderful UW pictures came out by good lucks, right? Moreover, I suggest not to set aperture too big when you practice this manual way in the beginning to avoid your subjects are easily out of focus like the Squad Lobster I took shows below.

The followings are also the pictures I took while practicing manual focus. Yes! The pictures I share are all edited and sharpened. However, I won't have too much room for editing if the basic qualities of these shoots are too terrible, isn't it?

Remark 1:

Some cameras don't release shutters if objects are out of focus. When using Manual Focus Mode, users can still press shutter bottoms even no object is focused.

Remark 2:

Strobes are usually connected by optical fiber cables and triggered by inner flashes while using mirrorless cameras. Unless you use big GN, recharge time of strobe usually is faster than inner flash. Thus, strobe can be triggered again right after the frist shoot as long inner flash is recharged. In order to have faster recharge time of the inner flash of my camera, I set the Flash Adjust as low as possible(GF1 is -2EV). After all, the purpose of inner flash is just triggering strobe, not lighting up subjects.