From the course: Photography Foundations: Exposure (part 2)

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Autofocus or shutter speed problem?

Autofocus or shutter speed problem?

From the course: Photography Foundations: Exposure (part 2)

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Autofocus or shutter speed problem?

- I'll sometimes hear a student in a workshop say "There's something wrong with my camera's auto focus, all of my pictures are blurry". When we dig into it, we usually determine that auto focus is actually fine, and that the soft focus has come from camera shake caused by a shutter speed that has been set too slow. So how can you tell the difference in post-production? It's usually pretty easy. Auto focus mechanisms rarely shoot images that are completely out of focus. Usually, if an auto focus system has a problem it's that it's chosen to focus on the wrong thing in your image. Take a look at this picture. The subject is out of focus, which might lead you to think that auto focus has failed. But look at the bush in the background. There are plenty of things there that are in focus. This shows that the auto focus system was actually working properly. When you discover a problem like this, you might want to double check your camera to see if a specific focus point has been selected…

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