Can i get better at manual focusing my slr?

Question

i never use manual focus especially on landscapes because i can never find the best part of the focus or whatever. also my autofocus seems to be not working sometimes. why? please help

Answer 1

Manual focus allows the photographer to decide exactly what part of the scene is most important.  Often, the key subject isn't in the center, but off to one side.  At other times, there are elements that can confuse the autofocus system of even the most advanced af system.

For example, try to shoot a little league game with the cyclone fence inbetween you and the players.  Or how about that beautiful scene where the branches of a tree frame your subject?  The challenges are many and seen daily.

When you use manual focus, your composition is truly your own.  Got a subject viewing an old church tower?  Take three shots.  One, focused on your subject, making him or her the most important element.  Two, focused on the church tower, making the subject a viewer and the tower first in importance.  Three, with a smaller aperture (f/16, f/22, etc.) with both is focus, sharing the viewer's attention.

I went on a tour with my family to China last year.  My daughter used my Nikon D50 and one of my lenses.  For the entire trip, she turned off the AF and shot manual focus.

I came back with many more photos than she took, but the fewer one on her memory cards were more carefully constructed and a product of her creative eye.  To be honest, in many situations, her photos were better than mine!

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Practice makes perfect!

Answer 3

Yes you can.

For landscapes, your focus is often times going to be at or near infinity.  (Not necessarily so for intimate landscapes, but generally true for broad landscapes.)  You can also use a smaller f/stop (f/11, f/16, f/22 etc).  Using a wide angle lens also helps to increase the amount of the scene that is in focus, due to the inherit depth of field wide angle lenses have.

Also, what camera do you have?  With some SLRs, you can change out focusing screens.  If it has interchangeable focusing screens, you'll often find one that has grid lines on it (to make getting things straight easier) and one that has been optimized for manual focusing (to be useful, you usually need a fast lens since your viewfinder tends to be dimmer than with the standard focusing screen).

If your camera is having trouble auto-focusing, it probably don't see enough contrast to focus on.