In our original production of the film, we had poor results when using automatic focus. The camera would attempt to refocus mid-shot not only ruining the appearance but ruining the audio as well. Doing further reading I learned that by using manual focus this issue is avoided, in addition to having more overall control of the shot. As someone who was used to using auto-focus for both videography and photography, this was an adjustment.
In order to gain experience with this new feature I went to my high school's girls' lacrosse game and took photos for them, experimenting with using manual focus. Below are some of the results:
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| None of the players are in focus. The only thing in focus is the grass within the immediate foreground of the photo. This resembles the appearance of a soft focus shot due to the "soft," slightly out-of-focus look it has. |
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| The players in this shot are in focus. Not everything is in focus though as the referee and the remainder of the background are out of focus. An example of a shallow focus shot in which subjects of the mid-ground are being focused on. |
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| Similar to the last shot, this is also an example of shallow focus. However, it is different in that its field of focus is the background rather than the mid/foreground. |
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Another example of a shallow focus shot where the foreground and midground are in focus. This shot is unique in that the "action" is out of focus, but you can still tell that action is occurring.
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Using manual focus was a challenging experience at first, but as I began to experiment more with it, the easier I found it to be. Having more control over the field of focus helped create higher-quality results. Taking more time to adjust the field of focus of our shots, and being more thoughtful about them during the re-shoot is vital to quality. Doing so will prevent everything from being in focus and/or the camera from re-adjusting on its own - both things that ruin the quality.
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