How to Focus
Manual focus, autofocus, presets, eye detection, tracking, remote release or autocapture? Decisions, decisions…
Panning for Gold
In the olden days, you had no choice. Cameras didn’t have autofocus (AF) systems, so you had to focus manually. Fortunately, those days are long gone, and modern DSLRs and mirrorless cameras give you tons of options for different conditions and types of shots. In fact, there are so many settings that it can feel a bit overwhelming!
Let’s look at what works best for wildlife photography…
Why is it Important?
Oh!
First of all, let’s get back to basics. The human eye is attracted to things that are in focus, so anything that’s blurred won’t demand as much visual attention. That’s the main reason why photographers worry so much about sharpness and go to such lengths to use the right equipment, the right technique and the right settings.
In wildlife photography, you should generally focus on the eye (or eyes) of the subject, and there’s a good reason for that. The eyes are the natural focal point. When we look at animals or birds, our natural instinct is to look at the eyes first, so it’s vital to make sure they’re sharp.
In fact, as long as the eyes are sharp, people don’t mind if other parts of the subject are out of focus. For example, this photo of a chacma baboon (see above) appears to be ‘sharp’ because the eyes are sharp—even though almost everything else is blurred! On the other hand, if everything else were sharp but not the eyes, people would think the photo was blurred! Crazy, but true…
Unfortunately, wildlife photographers have to cope with many situations that make it much harder to focus on the subject. If you leave aside cheap and nasty cameras and lenses (!), here are the main ones to watch out for:
low light
foreground distractions, eg grass, leaves and branches
unpredictable subject movement
rapid subject movement
long distances
heat haze
bright sun (in backlit shots).
Any of these problems can push your camera’s AF system to its limits (and beyond!), so it’s important to recognise the difficulties and come up with possible solutions in advance.
What are the Options?
"Behind you!"
Your basic choice is to focus manually or use autofocus. However, if you have a decent DSLR or mirrorless camera, it can be a little bit more complicated than that…!
Manual
For almost the entire history of photography, from 1826 to the present day, photographers had to focus manually. Autofocus just didn’t exist, so you had no option but to twiddle the focus ring on the lens. When I was 15, I bought my first camera, and I had to line up two halves of a circular image in the middle of the viewfinder to make sure my photo was in focus!
In the 1970s and 1980s, companies such as Leica, Konica, Polaroid, Nikon, Pentax and Minolta began to invent AF systems and build them into their cameras. It took a while for the technology to become reliable and easy to use, but there was only ever going to be one result.
Nowadays, it’s still possible to focus manually, but photographers tend to do it only as a last resort if they’re using a macro lens or something interferes with their AF system, such as low light or annoying leaves or blades of grass in the foreground.
Autofocus
Autofocus systems have now found their way into all mass-market cameras, including compact, bridge, DSLR and mirrorless models. That makes it incredibly easy to focus on your subject in almost all conditions.
All you need to do is half-press the shutter release button or, if you prefer Back Button Focus (BBF), just press the AF-ON or equivalent button on the back of the camera. You’ll probably also get confirmation of focus acquisition through a beep or a green dot appearing in the viewfinder.
Presets
Sharpness is so important in photography that many camera companies have introduced focus aids to make it easier to cope with difficult conditions, such as low light or sudden changes in subject distance. One of those is the ability to set up a function button (either on the lens or the camera) to focus at a preset distance.
This can be incredibly useful, especially if your camera’s AF system is being distracted by foreground objects. Normally, it takes a whole second or so for a lens to refocus from infinity to the minimum focusing distance (or vice versa), and that might mean losing the shot completely.
However, a preset button lets you save a particular focus distance so that you can almost instantaneously go back to it if you lose focus for whatever reason. I often do this myself when I’m trying to photograph a bird on a branch that’s relatively close when the background is the sky or something else quite far away. I know that losing focus might cost me crucial seconds, so I save the focal distance using one button and then press another to go back to it if I need to.
Eye Detection
The mirrorless revolution has brought many technological benefits and features to modern cameras, and the most important of those is probably eye detection. This is something that is crucial for wildlife photographers, but it’s something that’s virtually impossible to get with a DSLR due to design limitations.
Sony was the pioneer in eye detection, but Canon and Nikon now also have excellent systems in their latest mirrorless cameras, so there’s not much to choose between their flagship cameras: the ⍺1 II, R1 and Z9. These days, Artificial Intelligence (AI) helps to identify the subject, and cameras can now distinguish between humans, planes, trains, animals, birds and even insects!
All you need to do is select a suitable focus area, turn on eye detection and, again, either half-press the shutter release or press the AF-ON button to tell the camera to find the nearest eye of your subject. It really is that easy—even smartphones can do it!
Tracking
Tracking is available on DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, but it’s most useful when paired with eye detection. The camera will find the nearest eye and then, as if by magic, follow it all over the frame!
Remote Release
If you use a tripod or monopod, it’s sometimes inconvenient to acquire focus using the shutter release or AF-ON button. If you’re using a tripod to take long-exposure shots at night, for instance, you might want to avoid any camera shake by using a remote release. The same goes for taking low-angle shots by fitting your camera to a monopod and holding it upside-down over the side of your vehicle.
Traditionally, a remote release used to be a wired device that screwed into a hole in the camera body. Nowadays, there are plenty of reliable wireless devices on the market—and you can even use an app on your smartphone!
Camera Traps
If you set a camera trap using either your normal camera or a specialist trailcam, you obviously won’t be there to focus on your subject, so you’ll need to find a different solution. Depending on your camera, you could either set the autofocus so that it’s automatically triggered or, if that’s not possible, simply zoom out and dial in a narrow aperture. That should give you enough depth of field to produce sharp images.
Settings
Long Jump
Modern DSLRs and mirrorless cameras often have quite complicated AF systems, so it’s worth setting them up correctly so that you can get the most out of your system. Here are a few controls to look out for.
Direct Manual Focus (DMF)
Almost all interchangeable lenses have a focus ring, but there’s often a way to disable it. If there’s a DMF switch on the side of your lens, it gives you a choice. If you turn it on, you can override the autofocus and take control yourself by turning the focus ring, but if you turn it off, the focus ring won’t work.
Personally, I tend to turn my DMF switch off. I’m more worried about knocking the focus ring accidentally than I am about being able to focus manually. However, it’s up to you—and you can always switch from one to the other as conditions change.
Stickiness
To my mind, the most important control over the AF system is the ‘stickiness’ slider. This lets you choose how long the camera waits before trying to refocus on a different subject. It’s usually a 1-5 scale with 5 being the stickiest—ie the longest waiting time.
The advantage of the stickiest setting is that it helps you maintain focus when your subject disappears behind a tree or other foreground obstruction. The camera waits for a second or more before ‘giving up’ and trying to find a different subject.
The advantage of the least sticky setting is that it lets you switch between subjects more quickly and easily, simply by recomposing in the viewfinder.
Again, the choice is yours…
Focus Points/Areas
DSLRs and mirrorless cameras both let you choose the size of the frame to be used for focusing. DSLRs are at a disadvantage because their focus points usually only take up a third of the viewfinder. That’s why a lot of photographers use BBF, which is essential if you need to focus and recompose.
Let’s look at an example. You might want to put the eyes of a leopard in the top right-hand corner of the frame, but the focus area of your DSLR doesn’t extend that far. If you compose your shot the way you want it, there’s simply no way to focus on the eyes!
Instead, you have to set up BBF. That means you can point your camera so that the eyes are in the central focus area, press the AF-ON button with your thumb to acquire focus and then take your thumb away to lock focus. You can then recompose your shot, knowing that the leopard’s eyes will remain in focus (as long as it stays still).
Whether you have a DSLR or mirrorless camera, you need to decide the number of focus points or the size of the focus area. This is one of the many trade-offs involved in photography. In this case, you have to balance convenience with accuracy.
A large focus area means it’s easier for the camera to focus on part of your subject. However, a small focus area means you’re more likely to end up focusing on the eye rather than a wing or a foot! In general, it’s best to use the smallest area you can, but you might have to choose a bigger one if you’re trying to photograph fast-moving birds, say.
Focus Limiter
One of the ways camera manufacturers try to help speed up their AF systems is by adding focus limiters to their lenses. A focus limiter limits the distance at which the lens tries to focus, which means it’ll ignore very close objects and focus faster without ‘hunting’, ie endlessly changing the focus from near to far in a vain attempt to lock on in low light or through foreground distractions.
The whole thing sounds like a great idea, but you need to check the exact settings. My Sony 70-200mm lens has a focus limiter with an option of 3m to infinity, which is fine as I’m very rarely going to be photographing wildlife within three metres. However, my NIKKOR 600mm lens has a limiter that would limit me to 10m to infinity, and that’s a bit too restrictive!
Image Stabilisation (IS)
Almost all modern lenses (apart from wide-angles) have some kind of image stabilisation or vibration reduction. This is a great way to keep the viewfinder image stable, especially when using long lenses for very distant subjects, and it also lets you use a much slower shutter speed than you would normally. In fact, the benefit in some mirrorless models is now up to eight stops. That’s the difference between 1/250 and a whole second!
One thing people often forget is that there’s often a switch on the barrel of the lens that lets you choose the appropriate IS mode. Different camera companies have slightly different definitions, but, broadly speaking, Mode 1 is for normal usage, Mode 2 is for panning and Mode 3 is for photographing on a moving platform, such as a boat.
I know I ‘should’ keep my lenses on Mode 1, but I so often forget to change the slider for panning shots that I now keep it on Mode 2 just in case!
When to do What?
Dust Bird (taken at f/4 and 600mm from about 10 feet away!)
Now you know all the options and the main settings, the next question is when to change your approach. This is very much a matter of taste, so let me just tell you my own approach.
Having started out with DSLR cameras, I quickly learned how to use Back Button Focus, and I’ve never got out of that habit. Strictly speaking, I don’t really ‘need’ to use it with my new mirrorless cameras, but I don’t really lose anything by not switching back to half-pressing the shutter release to focus.
The main argument is that I could use my thumb to adjust another setting while using my index finger to focus, but I don’t find that very persuasive. As it is, I can quickly take my thumb off the AF-ON button, make any necessary changes with it and then press the AF-ON button again.
Both my cameras have very good AF systems with eye detection and tracking, so I can honestly say that I use those focusing aids 99% of the time. You might say that I should switch off eye detection if it’s not working for elephants or pelicans, say. However, I’ve found it’s just not worth it.
More importantly, I do recognise a few occasions when my cameras’ autofocus systems struggle, so let’s take a look at those situations.
Low Light
Dark Waters
Low light is always a problem for AF systems. They rely on light to focus properly, so if there isn’t enough, they simply can’t do it! The easy answer might be to avoid low-light situations, but that would mean never taking any photographs during the golden hour after sunrise or before sunset, which would be crazy!
Instead, you have to learn how to ‘help’ your camera. If it’s very dark, one thing you can do is try to focus on an area of higher contrast. That’ll usually make it easier for the AF system, so if you’re trying unsuccessfully to focus on the eye of a zebra, you might be better off switching to the border between two black and white stripes.
If you use BBF, another approach is to wait until you achieve focus lock and then simply take your thumb off the AF-ON button, thereby locking the focal distance. This obviously only works while your subject stays still, but that happens often enough for it to be useful.
Slow Pans
Hot to Trot
The hardest type of shot to keep sharp is probably the slow pan. The animal is moving, you’re moving, your camera is moving—everything is moving! And the whole thing can only work with a slow shutter speed. That means it’s very difficult to keep your subject’s eye(s) sharp while allowing the background and its legs or wings to blur out.
I still use BBF, eye detection and tracking for my slow pans, but one useful trick is to switch on the viewfinder gridlines to give you a reference point. Focusing on a moving subject is far easier if you can pan smoothly, keeping it in the same position in the frame. That’s much easier if you can line up the eye with one of the crossing points, say.
Tripods or Monopods
In the past, I’ve taken quite a few long-exposure shots at night of traffic and the night sky. I’ve always used a tripod, and I’ve almost always used a remote release. I used to have a wired version that I had to screw into the camera body, but I then bought a wireless version before the technology changed enough for me to use my iPhone.
I’ve experimented with using a monopod to take shots at a lower angle, but it wasn’t easy. I’d sold my wired remote release, so I couldn’t use that, and it was tricky to use my iPhone to focus and take pictures at the same time as holding my camera upside-down on the end of my monopod!
Birds in Flight
On a Wing and a Prayer
When I take pictures of birds in flight, it’s generally just after they take off. I’ve found that neither my Sony ⍺1 nor my Nikon Z8 has a fast enough AF system to be able to maintain focus on the eyes of small and medium-sized birds, such as little bee-eaters and lilac-breasted rollers.
As a result, I’ve had to shoot with a narrow aperture (up to f/16) to give myself a little more ‘wiggle room’, but it’s not an ideal solution. I hope Sony and/or Nikon will provide a firmware update soon that’ll solve the problem, but I’m not holding my breath…!
Macro
In the past, I’ve taken macro shots of flowers, bees and other insects in my garden, and achieving precise focus was certainly an issue. One approach I tried was to dial in the minimum focusing distance for my lens and then simply move my body in and out until my subject was sharp. It wasn’t always successful, but I’ve sold my macro lens now, so I don’t need to worry about that any more!
Distractions
"Keep off the Grass"
One of the common focusing problems in wildlife photography is distractions. Objects in the foreground, such as grass, leaves and branches, can make it almost impossible for the AF system to work properly. The obvious solution is to switch to manual focus, but it can be very hard to tell in the viewfinder whether your subject is sharp. Taking much longer bursts can help, but that’s little more than trial and error.
Another approach is to narrow your focus area. Cameras find it much easier to focus if you limit the area of the frame to a small part of your subject, ideally the eye. I’ve set up a custom button on both my cameras so that I can easily toggle between focus areas, and that’s generally very helpful.
Camera Traps
Camera traps are generally forbidden in African national parks, so I’ve never bothered to buy one. However, I notice that both my current cameras are able to operate in ‘autocapture’ mode. That’s perhaps something I’ll try when I’m next on safari…!
Heat Haze
Heat haze is a common problem for wildlife photographers in hot countries. I’ve been to Africa many times, and I initially didn’t realise what was happening—I thought my fuzzy images were caused by using a teleconverter with my longest lens!
I finally realised what was happening, but I’m afraid there aren’t any easy answers. Yes, you can avoid taking shots resting on the bonnet/hood of your car or take off your lens hood, but that still leaves you with a big problem, especially if your subject is far away across a grassy plain.
Another solution is to take pictures of animals in the shade, but that just means you have to compromise on the light, so that’s not ideal.
I guess the message here is just to be aware of the problem. It’s not your kit, and you’re not making a mistake. It’s just the inevitable mixing of hot and cold air, and that’s just physics, so get over it…!
Birds Fishing
Wing Beat
This is perhaps the ultimate focus challenge! When I was in Zambia in 2024, I spent hours at the Kapamba river crossing, trying to photograph malachite kingfishers fishing in the river. The Pre-Release Capture feature on my Nikon Z8 made it easy to get shots of the birds taking off from the marker posts, but it was incredibly hard to focus on them as they exploded out of the water.
The main problem with my Sony ⍺1 was that it would suddenly and unaccountably stop focusing on the bird, and the main problem with my Nikon Z8 was that it had such a long lens that I couldn’t get very close to the action. However, I eventually managed at least one decent shot (see above)!
Verdict
Black and Blue
Focusing is probably the most important skill in photography. In the early days of photography, you had to rely on manual focus, but autofocus systems on modern DSLRs and mirrorless cameras are now so sophisticated that the whole process largely happens automatically.
However, there are certain situations where focusing properly is still a problem. If that happens to you, your best defence is to recognise the problem and know enough about it to be able to solve it. There isn’t always a solution, but I hope the ideas in this article will help you increase your hit rate!
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