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Danny
I got a Canon R7 not too long ago. Auto Focus is great and all, but I wish there was a way for me to nudge it and tell it what to focus on. My creative brain this morning wanted to take a picture of this sunflower, but have a kind of tunnel leading up to it with the foilage on either side. the auto focus insists that the pepper plant to the left is the subject.
Is there a way for me to tell it to auto focus on the sun flower instead?
It probably wouldn't be bad idea for me to start learning how to actually use the camera and get off autofocus either. Which mode would be best for this kind of shot?
One of the most powerful techniques in photography is the principle of isolation. A painter starts off with a blank canvas and adds the elements they want the viewer to concentrate upon - in that way it is an additive art. Photography is a subtractive art: a photographer starts off with a scene that may have many distractions and they have to remove them, or reduce their significance, in order to let the subject stand out to the viewer.
There are several ways to do this. One, you have alluded to: namely, to limit what is in focus using a particular focal length, but if the sunflower is your subject, it is fighting for attention with all of the other disparate elements in your image. That is where subtraction comes in. If you want the sunflower to stand out, make it big in the screen, and you can do so simply by getting close to it! By doing so, it will also be much easier to isolate it further with focus.
What we are attracted to in an image: things in focus, the brightest elements, strong colours or contrast, differences in movement, faces (especially eyes) and often writing.
What is in focus is defined by what we call Depth of Field (DoF). That is, what appears to be in focus vs what is not. A shallow DoF will isolate the object in focus against competing elements. That effect of reducing DoF is created by - the closer the subject, the longer the focal length, the smaller the f/stop value. Combinations of those will impact DoF - which is why I post the camera settings for my images. For example:
In this image the subject is clear and prominent because the background is not distracting, the subject is large in the image and it is isolated by being in sharp focus vs the background.
So, it the sunflower is your subject, then I would suggest get close, use a fairly small f/stop value, and simplify the background - but make sure there is light on the flower - usually flowers face the light in any case. You could still get the same effect as my rock image with an 18-55mm kit lens, if you follow these principles. For example:
I don't have a sunflower, but hopefully this will give you the principle. Here, the flower is by far the largest and brightest element in the composition and most of the other elements are fairly out of focus.
Photography depends on two types of skill. The Technical: that is, understanding light and how it behaves, plus how the elements of a camera: the lens, sensor, and shutter combine to control how much light is in the image, how we control movement (of the subject and camera), and how we decide what is in focus. The second component of photography is creativity through composition: where and how we place a subject, how we frame it, where we let the light fall and the use of form, texture and framing.
One of the most important things to do is to look at the photos of other photographers whose work you consider good. When I first started off with photography, I couldn't afford a decent camera, but I bought a book by a renowned photographer that explained all of those elements and gave many examples. I consumed that for a long time before I got my first camera. There are many such books available - from the library, for example. I still study the work of photographers I admire and I still learn from them after 40 years as a practitioner.
Wow, I have seen some strange answers to your question. There are various ways to tell the camera what you wish to focus upon, some a little too complex for your current level as a beginner. The simplest methods would be:
(1) touch and drag, where you look through the EVF while using the rear LCD as a track pad to move the AF point around the frame and drop it where you want it to focus,
See p.472 of the Advanced User Guide
(2) look up Customise Buttons and change the option for the Multi-Controller (Joystick) to have direct AF point selection. This means the multi-controller is always active and ready to move the AF point around the screen to where you want to focus.
See p.518 of the Advanced User Guide
You can then choose whatever type of autofocus point you want to use and move it around with the rear screen or with the multi-controller.
