Focusing!

[uberdude]

Just realised how and why some of my shots have been out of focus - On the Pentax K-r, there is a choice of focus points, basically most of my recent shots - people / animals that I'm aiming at in the centre of the viewfinder are not always locked on, this is due to my misunderstanding of the autofocus system - having it set at 11 or 5 point AF doesn't mean getting what's in the centre - it's dependant on what is around.

Today at my Nephews 1st birthday, the AF was (and has been) set to 5 point, yet the cake was that bright, and slightly in front, allowing that to be focused on and not the centre spot subject, annoyingly I have some out of focus face shots (this is on portrait mode too, some settings can't be altered, but I assumed the standard scenes have fixed parameters - clearly not!). Obviously I need to really scrutinise all my settings before any pictures! Making me think too much this photography malarkey! On the plus side, I had some nice cake shots...

Need to read up and retain and practice.....

It's set to centre spot for now anyway! :bonk:

 

[happygolucky]

Mine is never off the centre spot. I use back button focusing and recompose when required.

 

[Phil V]

From your post the issue is simple, you're leaving the camera to decide what to focus on. I'm not familiar with your camera, but you'll be able to set the focus point, lots leave it on the centre point, but I choose mine to avoid too much recomposing. That's personal choice though.

But your photography will never improve whilst the camera is choosing what to focus on.

 

[s162216]

Part of your problem is also likely that you used the portrait setting which pushes the lens towards using low apertures so depth of field is also pretty shallow especially if you close to the subject, hence why the cake was in focus and not the person as well. Look up about using the aperture priority mode (Av on Pentax cameras) and next time use this to select a high f number (e.g F8) as this will give you more depth of field, you might have to increase the ISO though to get a decent handholdable shutter speed. Use the search function on the forum to try to find out more about this as there are tons of threads about using Av mode, Tv mode etc.