Focus mode settings.

My wife shoots my d7000. She took a trip to Texas over the weekend with my son and his girlfriend. She does a pretty good job most of the time with her shooting. I had her camera set for single point focus which is where I have my D7100 set and it works good for me. The shooting she did this weekend she was in a hurry and did not get good focus on what would have been some good shots. I have been wanting to switch her over to Back Button Focus so now it the time. My question is do you think she would get better (easier) results if i switch it over to 9 point focus? A little more leeway for her?

I love my single point ans keep it there unless I am shooting bird in flight and then it gets switched over to 9 or 51 point. But this is for a more casual shooter.

I don't know the case for your wife, but my wife's biggest challenge, and it took a while to get her to think about it, was that she always had her shutter speed too slow. Because of her technique and not wanting to really work at it, takes the fun out of it for her, I told her to keep her shutter speed double her focal length as a min. Once she started doing this she had a whole lot less blurry shots.

Moab Man said:

I don't know the case for your wife, but my wife's biggest challenge, and it took a while to get her to think about it, was that she always had her shutter speed too slow. Because of her technique and not wanting to really work at it, takes the fun out of it for her, I told her to keep her shutter speed double her focal length as a min. Once she started doing this she had a whole lot less blurry shots.

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Not the problem with my wife. I have ISO set to min 100 max 3200 and minimum shutter set at 1/500th. She shooting with the 18-200 only. She was just not taking her time with the focus since it was at the stock yard in Dallas TX and there were a lot of things going on. As you can see from my setup I try and take most of the setup away from her since all she really cares about is shooting and she really loves doing that. I also have U2 set for Bird in Flight shots and that is the only time she changes settings at all. The D7000 is really a very good Point and Shoot camera for her but it really does a good job with that.


Happy Wife, Happy life.

I'm not sure about this 9 points focus Don. I suspect her results might have been caused by VR which has not enough time to set before the shutter is pressed. VR is something that should be turned OFF unless needed, and I for one forget that often. When you want to shoot fast and quick, VR should be off since when you use it you have to wait a second or two for it to settle before you depress the shutter to the bottom.

This is not a VR problem. It is just missed focus. You can see clear focus somewhere other than where she wanted it.

Go with 9

For subjects that are moving in a relatively slow, predictable manner, I suggest using D9.

The faster or more erratic the subject moves, the larger array of focus points you will want to use.
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