Most people know what it means to focus with your camera lens. To do this, you adjust the distance of the lens (or an element inside the lens) from the sensor. There are two ways you can focus your camera – automatically (Autofocus or AF) or manually (MF).

As you probably already know, autofocus is there to do the hard work for you, and in most shooting situations this is all you will need to take great in-focus photographs. What you might not know is that there are different types of autofocus for different situations; this is what we hope to give you a better understanding of here.

Focus modes

The focus modes are generally set using a dial on the front of your camera. On some cameras this control is a switch on the side of the camera.

Single Autofocus (AF-S)

With single autofocus, once you half press the shutter button, the camera…