Photo Tip – The half press

 

This is a new category of posts that I’m starting post Valentine’s day to let the love for photography spread. Every once in a while, I intend to post a photo tip that will help you improve your photography. I’ll post them as I learn them or when I have that “Oh yeah” moment, so watch out for these ones.

So here goes. The photo tip for today is: The half press button technique

How many times have you clicked a photograph and found it out of focus, blurred or hazy? You did everything right, positioned everything, held the camera steady, pressed the button in one smooth action…. yet, blurry picture!!

I clicked the below photo with my phone camera, which is a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera using exactly everything that was mentioned above, positioned the subject, held the camera steady and pressed the button quickly in one go.

The result, as you can see, was good, but not very impressive. The photo is definitely not sharp and not worthy of the 3.2 megapixel camera that clicked it.

So what did I do wrong??

Well, its not exactly something I did wrong, but something I did not do.

And that something is the half press action.

The shutter release button is the button you press to capture the photograph. All autofocus cameras have the shutter release button which has two levels of press, the soft press and the full press.

 

Now lets do this practically. Turn on your camera and put your finger on the camera button. With a light pressure, press on the button and feel it go halfway down till you meet with some resistance. The camera should not yet have clicked the photograph. If your camera display is on, you’ll see a green square or a filled green circle at this point on your screen.

Now hold the button in this position. Congratulations….. you’ve just soft pressed.

By pressing the button halfway, you allow the camera to adjust its focus and settings for the best possible exposure. This is where the camera decides on the aperture size and the shutter speed. When you see the green framing square or the green circle, the camera is indicating that it has read the view and is ready to click the photograph.

Now you can press the button till you see the flash or hear that familiar click that tells you that you’ve just clicked the photo.

So what did I get when I followed the half press trick??

Voila, as tack sharp and as clear a photograph as is possible. Once the camera has focussed and set itself up, the resultant photograph is much better. Definitely worthy of the 3.2 megapixel rating.

Remember, the half press works with every single autofocus camera, be it a humble mobile camera to a high end dSLR. The shutter release button on all cameras today have this type of two way construction. And it is always mentioned in the manual under the “Taking Photos” section. But then you never did read your manual, right??

What should I be careful about when using this tip?

Remember, when you half press the camera button, the camera takes a reading of what it is pointed at. but that is only till the time you keep the button depressed. If you release the button without clicking the photograph, the camera loses the reading. So while taking the picture, half press the button to take the reading till the green indication is seen on the LCD screen and then press further down to take the picture.

Also, if you take a half press reading while pointing at one scene and then point the camera at something else and click the picture, chances are that the resulting photograph would not be all that great. That is because the reading taken was for that scene only. To click another scene, take a half press reading for that scene, wait for the indication and then press the button fully to capture the photograph.

My camera does not have a button. I have a touchscreen. How do I do it?

This is a question I’ve got especially from mobile camera users. I have a mobile phone of this type. For some sad reason, mobile phone manufacturers decided to do away with the button in some phone models [See what happens when the designer is not a photography enthusiast?]

However, you can still use the half press trick provided your mobile phone has an autofocus camera. Point your camera at the scene you want to capture, press your finger on the designated area on the screen and keep it pressed there till you see the green indication on the screen.

Now take your finger off the screen to capture the photograph. You’ve got a focussed image. This screen pressing technique actually introduces some shaking when you release the screen, so you’ll have to practice to take steady shots.

So go on and try the half press technique. And do let me know if this helped your photography. As usual, queries and suggestions are welcome.