Why You Should Not Focus & Recompose

April 9th, 2008

Everyone does it, right?

The camera manual recommends it: "how you focus on a subject which is off-center".

The "pros" do it.

While it may work with point and shoots or when shooting at small apertures, it is a bad technique.

This is especially noticeable when shooting with large apertures (wide open), i.e. whenever the depth of field is small. With a 50mm/1.2 or 85mm/1.2 shot wide open it will be VERY noticeable.

The simple reason is that focusing in center and then swiveling the camera to make that point off-center produces a virtual triangle. The path from the camera to the first point is the hypotenuse and the path from the camera to the second is the adjacent. Mathematics tell is that in no triangle is the hypotenuse equal to the adjacent, unless both lie on a straight line. This results in an out-of-focus subject.

Read this article for a clearer take on the problem.

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