The times that I’ve seen great photographic masters work up close, Henri Cartier Bresson for example, I noticed that some of the iconic images weren’t as sharp as I had expected. Of course early work from photographers using larger formats were actually sharper than anticipated, but regardless, the work was amazing and the visual message was communicated.

Bresson used a Leica, and Leica shooters know their manual focus rangefinders so well, they often set their focus manually without looking, and/or use the hyperfocal distance (or here) rule, by choosing a small aperture and reading on the lens dial, the in-focus range for that f-stop. Knowing this information means you can just shoot without focusing, with the assurance that anything from 5ft to infinity for example, will be reasonably sharp at f16 with a given focal length lens.

Photos Copyright: Steve Simon

Armed with that information, the Leica rangefinder becomes a true point and shoot that even the fastest autofocus can’t match. (this theory holds true for any camera that lets you control the aperture). This is how the great street shooters like Bresson and Gary Winogrand could move and shoot so swiftly.

When my shooting eye was getting undependable for manual focusing, autofocus stepped in to rescue me. With my eyes of old, I preferred to manually focus, composing the shot and pre-focusing on the picture element I wanted sharp. Then I would wait for something great to happen within the frame. I miss not being able to manually focus.

Better Way

But I have found a better way than the default autofocus on most cameras.

I used to set the camera on single frame, center the focus circle on what I wanted sharp, then recompose and trigger the shutter. I would hazard a guess and say that this is the technique used by the majority of D-SLR shooters out there, and no wonder there are so many static compositions being made—people forget to “recompose”, placing their subjects dead center.

The better way? Most D-SLRs in the menu setting let you take the autofocus away from the shutter release and move it to the little button on the top-back of the camera to the right of the viewfinder window.

This is my preferred technique, and its value is revealed if you tend to shoot things that move as opposed to still subjects like landscapes.I can now keep the focus mode on continuous-tracking and have the best of both worlds.

I press this button in, focus; let go -- recompose and shoot. It's as fast a process as when using the shutter trigger to autofocus. But in situations where I’m moving or the subject is moving, I can keep the button pressed—and the camera’s amazing continuous autofocus tracks the subject and I can trigger the shutter repeatedly and get many more sharp shots in fast moving situations.

With the old way, confronted with a change in subject from static to moving, I would have to re-set the camera from single mode to continuous tracking and back, which was cumbersome, took time and meant missing the moment while these changes were being made.

It takes some getting used to the new system, and if you forget to press the focus button, no autofocus happens, but after a while the new system becomes second nature. I feel more in control, like back in the day, when my eyes were sharper and I manually focused. You should give it a try.