FujiFilm HS-10 - Using AF Area

One of the neat features, that some cameras have, is the ability to move the focus point to anywhere within the frame.

I don't mean simply selecting one of the pre-defined focus boxes, I mean anywhere !!

The Fujifilm HS-10 has this feature. It is called AF Area. I use it a lot when I am shooting a scene where I want a particular part of the scene to be the main focus point.

Simply, by pressing the AF button, and then selecting 'Area', a box with arrows will appear which can then be moved to any part of the frame.

If you have the HS-10, have a look at page 50 in the user manual.

I was hoping to do some outdoors shots to show how this works but the weather here is a little dismal, at the moment.

So, just a simple desktop capture to show how it works. I'll try and add some outdoors examples soon.

Anyway, I placed two objects on the desk and the front one is about 30 cm's in front of the rear one. I then took an image focussed on the front one, and then an image focussed on the rear one.

Note : To (re)select the focus point, simply press the AF button again, and move to the second area where focus is desired. Also, for the purposes of this exercise, I had a macro adaptor on the camera.

Here are the two images shown side-by side (enlarged).

I used to shoot a lot of jewellery (boring as heck), and one of the techniques used, for very close macro work, was to take multiple images at different focus points, and then stitch it all together in Photoshop. What this did was to give an image which had focus right through the subject. I have put one example lower down the page.

We can do the exact same with the two images I shot here.

Simply, I used the Polygonal Lasso Tool (Photoshop) and selected around the rear object, including some of the fabric they are sitting on. After 'feathering' the edges of my selection, I simply copied and pasted onto the other image.

The result below.

Nothing too fancy, and a little rough. It is purely for illustrative purposes though.

Below, is an example of jewellery which was shot using AF Area, albeit on a Sony camera, to focus on different parts of the jewellery, and then combining all those sections using Photoshop.

From memory, about six different images were used.

One quick example where I used AF Area, with the HS-10, was in the image below. I set the focus point so that the cooking pot was the main focus point in the image.

Cheers.

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