I re-learned a valuable lesson today.
âWhen problem solving, never start with the assumption that you know anything about the problem.â
For a several years my main digital camera was a Fuji F7000. I knew how this camera worked and understood itâs controls. It was, and still is, a good camera.
Late last year I upgraded to a Nikon D200. This was a big jump from the Fuji to the Nikon, but like most higher level cameras they have many features in common.
One difference is some of the auto-focus options. I didnât realize how different until I finally spent a couple of hours this morning reading and re-reading the manual and taking some test shots.
I normally use the built-in auto-focus features unless there is some special reason to manually focus or to override the suggested auto-focus. Sometimes you may have a number of subjects in a photo and with a shallow depth of field you want just one of the subjects to be in perfect focus. If the subjects are close together horizontally, it can be difficult for a camera to accurately pick that one subject out and suggest the right focus. It this case I’d let the camera suggest a focus and then manually override it with the focus I want.
The problem Iâve been having with the D200 is that when taking a set of photoâs some would be soft focused (a little out of focus). It wouldnât be all of them, even when I took them all with the same settings.
The root cause of the problem was my misunderstanding the D200 11 zone focus system. Based on previous experience and presumed knowledge I’d selected the wrong auto-focus settings.
The reason it took me so long to find the problem was because I was hung up on what I thought I knew. Only when I accepted that I knew nothing of the problem, starting from scratch, did I make progress.
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