44 essential digital camera tips and tricks

Digital camera tips: 14. Which AF point(s) should you use?

DSLRs and mirrorless cameras may have a bewildering number of AF points to choose from as well as a wealth of focusing modes, from simple single point AF to much more advanced focus tracking. Make sure you spend time getting to grips with your camera’s AF system as this can prove invaluable before a big and important shoot.

Digital camera tips: 15. Buying lenses

A bad lens will always be a bad lens, no matter what DSLR or mirrorless camera you attach it to. So before you decide that you’ve ‘outgrown’ your camera and need a ‘better’ one, ask yourself if investing in a new lens might be a better option instead? A few extra pixels and smarter features might sound enticing, but a faster maximum aperture and higher optical quality could go much further in helping you take better pictures with the camera you already have.

Digital camera tips: 16. Manual lenses

There are thousands of lenses left over from the days of 35mm film, and as many DSLRs are ‘backwards compatible’ (most notably Nikon and Pentax) they can still be used in the digital age, while there are numerous adapters available for mirrorless cameras. Moreover, as many of them are dirt-cheap it’s a great way of expanding your focal length repertoire. But there is a downside.

Some lenses perform better than others, and the only real way of weeding out the good from the bad is to give them a go. In general, zoom lenses and wide-angle focal lengths tend to be the worst performers. In addition, there is the need to focus manually, and in-camera exposure metering can be unpredictable and unreliable.

That said, there are some cracking manual focus lenses out there, and in certain situations they can actually outperform contemporary low-cost zooms in terms of sharpness.