Lesson Two: Focus

What fascinates me most about DSLR cameras is its ability to focus: sharpen and blur  subjects and backgrounds. And so today, I fed my hanker to learn the nitty-gritty of it.

With the many selections offered by a DSLR, one can easily manipulate which part of the scene to sharpen and blur.

There are two ways to do this.

• Auto-Focus. As the name suggests, the camera automatically focuses the material that's in front of it. Whatever it is, the camera considers it as the subject. In this setting, one must not forget to put the rod of the lens from "MF" to "AF". MF means manual focus and AF means auto focus. Also, put the setting to auto-focus. If you're camera is like mine, all you have to do is press the right arrow. This will lead you to the focus options. Press the right arrow again to highlight the "auto-focus" option and finally, press the button at the center of the navigation buttons to confirm the selected option.

• Manual Focus. You can be the ultimate controller of the sharpness and blur effect of your camera- thanks to Manual Focus. To do so, put the rod of the lens to "MF" and make sure you set the camera to "one shot". From there, you can adjust which part of the scene you want to sharpen and blur. Do this simply by rotating the lens from left to right.

Before I forget, the distance between the nearest and farthest subjects in the scene is called "depth of field".