Nikon D500 Tutorial Part 2 | How To Focus Training

In this lesson we're going to be talking about the optical focusing systems of our Nikon D500. This is the focusing systems as we look through the viewfinder. In a later lesson we'll be discussing live view focusing which is using the back monitor but that will come a little bit later on in the course. If you do not have your camera in hand as you watch this lesson I would definitely recommend that you pause the video get your camera in hand and follow along as we talk about the how the when and the where our camera is focusing. First let's talk about the how. To engage our camera's focusing systems we are going to push the shutter button halfway down. If you do this looking through the viewfinder you're going to see a little dot in the bottom left hand corner like a little white circle. This means the camera is focused. Push Next let's talk about the when the camera is focusing. This has to do with our camera's focusing modes. To change our camera's focusing modes we're going to push this side button. It's kind of a little weird place for it. It's just below the lens release there's a switch and a button there that should be pointing to AF. As we push this button and look through the viewfinder we are going to rotate the back thumb wheel and in the bottom left hand corner you are going to see these modes change AF-S and AF-C. Let's start off with AF-S which stands for auto focus single. What this means is when we use this focusing mode the camera is going to get one single focusing lock. You push the shutter button halfway down the camera focuses. As long as we hold the shutter button halfway down the focus will not change. We can even move the camera around focus isn't going to change. This is ideal for still subjects maybe portraits, landscapes, product photography, things that do not move. When you push shutter button down all the way again it takes a picture. One skill set I would definitely recommend that you practice is called recomposing. What this means is that we get a focus lock and holding the shutter button halfway down we change the composition of our subject to make it more aesthetically pleasing and then we take the picture. This is a skill all photographers should have. It allows us to get a quick focus to change the look and to take the shot all very quickly within a couple seconds. Now a side note about recomposition is it doesn't work really well for very wide apertures like 1.8, 1.4 and the reason is when you get that focus lock and you move the camera you are changing the location of the depth of field of where it's focusing. If you're using f4, f5.6 it's probably going to be okay. Okay so that was a little tangent. Let's come back to the focusing modes and take a look at AF-C. We're going to push this side focus mode button down, rotate the thumb wheel again until we see it say AF-C. This stands for auto focus continuous focus and when we push the shutter button halfway down in this mode the camera is going to be focusing over and over and over again. This is going to be ideal for fast moving subjects, maybe athletes, cars, birds in flight, crazy little kids acting like monkeys, things of that nature because the camera is going to try to predict where your subject is going to be as you push that shutter button all the way down. So those are the core auto focus modes whether it's a single one-time lock for still subjects or a continuous focus for moving subjects. Simple as that. You'll also notice that we have this M so when we flip the switch pointing to the M that means we're in the manual mode. Most modern lenses will also have an auto focus to manual switch located on the lens barrel but if it doesn't this is a quick way to jump over to manual focusing. I use manual focusing when I'm maybe in live view which I'll demonstrate later, macro, things of that nature, but if your auto focus is not working, I get a lot of emails and questions about this, it's usually one of these two switches is turned to manual. So we'll just leave that on AF for now. So we've talked about the how, we've talked about the when, now let's talk about the where which has to do with the cameras focusing squares. I refer to these groups as clusters. There are seven of them. First I'm going to tell you what they are, when I think you should use them, then I'm going to show you how to move them around. The thing about this is you want to set your camera to AF-C for this part of the lesson. If you are on AF-S you're only going to see three clusters. Let's take a look at all seven. So once you see that you're on AF-C you're going to take your index finger and now rotate the front wheel instead of the back wheel and you're going to notice these different sets of squares appearing in your viewfinder. Just keep on rotating them. In the bottom right hand corner we're going to see these letters changing, they mean different things that I'm about to tell you, but just get into the habit of changing your focusing clusters with the front wheel and you're going to change the modes with the back wheel. Make it a habit. The one I want to start off with first is S which stands for single focusing square. I use this one probably 90 to 95 percent of the time. It allows us to specifically tell the camera where to look when it engages its focusing systems. It allows us to be accurate and it's very useful once you get a hang of it. So yeah it makes sense, single square most of the time. Now something I want to point out and I get a lot of questions about this too, as we rotate to the next cluster which is called D25 I want you to lift your finger off of the button and notice how the cluster appearance changes. So what we see in many of the modes is that as we scroll through them we get a visual confirmation of which cluster we're using, but as soon as we lift our finger up it changes and that is the shooting mode of that cluster. So some of these, the dynamics, the 3D, the auto, they all appear different when you select it, but when you shoot it looks a little bit different. So if you don't know which mode you're in, push this auto focus mode button down and you should be able to recognize it. So let's talk real quick about D25, D72, and D153. The D stands for dynamic and something you're going to notice is that we have these dots surrounding our focusing squares. Those dots represent focus positions that the camera uses that we cannot select. There's actually 153 total focusing squares. We can only choose 55 of them. So let's take D25 for example. We see nine focusing squares and a bunch of little dots. What's going to happen as we lift our finger up, we're given the center focusing square and we see these nine dots around it. So the dynamic modes mean that we have a center square, but if our subject leaves that square, the camera has permission to look in the surrounding area depending on which dynamic box we've chosen. D25 is the smallest, D72 is medium size, and then we have D153. Next we have the 3D tracking mode. You'll notice again as you remove your finger, we get a single focusing square, but this one has a little dot in it. What this means is that as we get focused lock on something, you will notice that the camera is changing the focusing squares. This is ideal for subjects that move side to side erratically and we're giving the camera permission to actually change which focus square it's using. I personally don't use it that much, but I know a lot of photographers who just love it. Next we have our four square focusing group and this one is particularly useful when shooting, for me at least, birds in flight that I can't keep a single focusing square on. If they're moving quickly, I like using that four square group. That's just me, some people will disagree. And then we have our auto focusing mode. This focusing mode is really for pure beginners and what it means is that the camera is going to focus on the closest subject to us. Basically if you're feeling overwhelmed with all your other settings, it might be a good place to start. Now the truth of the matter is, again, I only use two of these, so we can go into a customization of our menu. So we're going to press menu, go to the auto focus customization page, that's the red one. We're going to go to A9 and I am going to uncheck everything but single and group area AF. This is very important. Then I'm going to push the OK button to save this. If you don't push the OK button, it's not going to be saved. Now when I cycle through my different clusters, I only see two different groups, single and four, and this means I don't have to toggle through all these other clusters to get to the ones that I want. Now let's talk about how to move our focusing squares. You'll notice on the back of our camera, we have both a directional pad and a joystick. Now another question I get all the time is, why can't I move my focusing squares? 98% of the time it's because we've bumped the lock switch. So if you see the switch pointing to L, it's going to prevent you from moving your focusing squares around. Let's make sure that's unlocked. We can move our focusing squares with the directional pad or with the joystick, which I really like. It's ergonomically amazing. So we look through the viewfinder and we can move our focusing square around by pushing left to right, up or down. Something that's cool to know is the set button on our directional pad, if you push this into the camera body, it'll jump the focusing square back to the center. Try that out. Boom. Now something else that some people don't know is we also have a function when we push the joystick into the camera body. The way this works is you have to be on auto focus continuous. When you don't want the camera to change its focus, you're going to push this into the camera body, the joystick. That is going to lock focus and lock exposure. It's kind of a shortcut to get back to manual focus. So nice little addition there. I wish it was more customizable. So we've talked about the how, we've talked about the when, we have also talked about the where the camera is focusing, and I want to give you guys a few extra little suggestions. Another customization that I would really highly recommend is A11. This is the wrap around feature. When this is turned on and you look through your viewfinder, pushing all the way to the right with your single focusing square, you will be able to jump to the left side of your camera. Works both directions. You can also go up and when it hits the border it will appear on the bottom of the camera. This is going to be faster to change which side you're shooting on. Finally, let me give you a recommendation if you plan to do a lot of sports shooting. This is back button focusing. Now remember we talked about this thumb button being able to focus as well? There is a way to remove focus from the halfway shutter button depression in our menu. I'm going to show it to you. And the idea of this is is that we when we want to focus we push the thumb button down. If we want the camera to not focus we just lift it up. When we shoot camera will not change its focusing. This is very powerful if you have a moving subject that stops. Maybe you want to recompose because when we have it on the shutter button we have to push through that focusing point and it forces us to keep our square on our subject. So it's a preference thing. Some people it's not a big deal. Sports shooters tend to love this. The way we set it up is we go into our customization. It's an auto focus A8 activation. We're going to turn that to AF on. So that is the optical focusing systems of our Nikon D500. We've talked about the how, the when, the where, as well as some other customizations and tips. Thank you guys for watching and I'll see you next time. If you found this video helpful you might be interested in my crash course on the Nikon D500. I'll teach you the basics and show you how to shoot like a pro in no time. You can order from the following link.