Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
when you look through the viewfinder of your camera and you half press the
shutter button to autofocus.
The autofocus beaps to tell you that everything's nice and sharp
but what you see with your eye look a bit soft and fuzzy, that's gonna be rather
off-putting,
it means you need to set up your diopter, which is the kind of adjustment in the
viewfinder of the camera
to help it match your eyesight. Many of you have been in touch to ask how to do this and
there are lots of different methods, everybody has got their own way.
This is how I go about it and I like to use the signpost,
you don't have to use a signpost you could use the number plate of a car. The
point is you need something with a nice clear contrasty edge
for autofocus to snap onto, the other thing you must use is a tripod,
if you try doing this holding it in your hand you rock backwards and forwards,
you'll never know
whether that distance, you know the autofocus has snapped it.
If you move backwards and forwards you could make it soft and fuzzy just
by your own movement. So i'm using a seventy mill lens
and i'm about, where am i, i'm about
i am about two meters away from you know the point of focus.
so that means I know the auto focus has focused.
Autofocus is very very accurate, you have to trust it, even if when you look
you think it's soft
it's your eyesight trust the autofocus. When you do this
do it without two glasses on you need to set the diopter for your eyesight
not for your corrected eyesight. When you look through the viewfinder
the camera is actually giving you an image the equivalent
of one meter or so away from your eye
it doesn't matter if you're photographing the horizon with mountains
going on a macro shot of an insect
what you're seeing is the equivalent of one meter away from your eye
so you don't need to wear different glasses to look for it, always do it without your
glasses on. So here we go using the autofocus
i'm focusing on the white text against the
black background, that has now locked.
I now know that, that is sharp. When you do this,
without your glasses on look through the viewfinder, if what you see is a bit fuzzy then
you do need to adjust the diopter.
You do it with this little wheel here, you look through
no glasses and you roll this little adjuster up and down backwards and forwards and
the shot will either get sharper and softer and softer and sharper, backwards
and forwards just keep going until you find the point where
its sharpest and it looks pin sharp to your eye, something you need to remember is that it
isn't actually affecting
the autofocus of your camera, it is something in the viewfinder.
Somebody got in touch with us, a lady called Sharon mcanister
she wears distance reading glasses as well as close up glasses
because of this thing about you're actually only seeing
something a meter away, I recommend if you're like Sharon don't use the
distance glasses at all,
but you may need to use the close-up glasses so you can see the back of the
camera if you want to change menu settings or
white balance settings. Now i know it's a pain that you've gotta use your glasses so i can
only suggest getting a chain or something and dangling them round your neck so
you can kind of do some peering, like that.
Hope that helps, that's how you set up your diopter and once you've got that set
do not put your glasses on to look through the viewfinder
another reason for that is they hold your eye away from the viewfinder
a little bit, which means it can be hard to check all around the edges to make sure
compositions righ. Hope that helps
hope that helps to keep your pictures right and sharp.