Problem with little boxes during D70 auto focusing - please help?

[deafAVguy]

I have a D70 with a 18-135mm lens that works great. It's a great camera but the auto focus sometimes gives me fits when I am shooting photos and looking through the eye piece (NOT the LCD screen).

See below:

I recently had two people. I zoomed in a little bit to frame the shot, held shutter down to focus, it looked good, then fired. but both of them were out of focus and instead it focused on the background.

The above illustration is not a clear representation of what it looked like but I know those little squares are supposed to be the area it will focus...just not in this case.

Is there something I can do with those little squares so I can get the darn things to focus on the right subject in my shot? Any links that explain how to do this?

Thank you.

[cicopo]

You need to read up on the options of how to select which AF point you want the camera to use for the photo. There are ways to be specific & that's what you are doing wrong. The AF can ONLY focus accutately to 1 distance and the rest of what stays in focus depends on depth of field which gets wider (front to back) as the aperture number gets higher.

[deafAVguy]

OK any suggestions? I'm deaf so are there any captioned videos or websites that perhaps you learned how to do it?

Thank you.

[diverhank · Accepted solution]

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@deafAVguy wrote:

OK any suggestions? I'm deaf so are there any captioned videos or websites that perhaps you learned how to do it?

Thank you.

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What's wrong with reading the manual? Page 100-108 talks about how to use the focusing fairly well.  You can search youtube for videos that show you how to do it.  I can't post links here as it's against forum rules.

Basically you should set the focus mode to single point, starting out in the middle.  Focus on what you want and while continuing to hold down the shutter button half way, recompose and then take the shot.  Or you can first compose then move the middle point to where you want to focus then take the shot.  The manual will tell you how to do this.

[deafAVguy]

This makes a lot of sense thanks for this info I will check out the manual too.  Thank you.