A200 focussing question

hi!

im new to photography ... i bought myself the A200 twin lens kit as i had a baby 4 months ago and i want to take better than average shots of him :) my question is about focussing.. hes still immobile in the sense that he stays in one place BUT he is very wriggly and doesnt sit still.. so what setting should i have the focussing on ? what do you usually do for moving animals etc ?

i had it on continous focus but then i cant use Wide cos i find that the camera mostly doesnt guess the correct sensor and i like to keep my aperture wide so the focus is really important.. spot focus doesnt work on continous, you cant focus lock so i ended up missing the focus a lot as it would jsut refocus in the centre.. and i find selecting the correct sensor myself too fiddly, i miss the moment.. so i guess i choose single instead of continous even though he's moving ? then use spot .. focus lock and recompose ?

i dont mind manual focus but i also dont know how to tell which is the sharpest sharpest point.. like a subject will be in focus for a small section of a turn so how do i know exactly where to stop ? hope that makes sense.

as you can tell im a super newbie:)

SPOT focus for sure! This makes it so that the very center square you see through the viewfinder will be where the camera makes its focus point, 'evaluative' or 'wide area' AF can throw random focus points that make focusing moving objects obnoxious. The effect spot-focus has on your shooting style, however, needs to be noted - you will have to focus before you compose the image. This will take a fine control over the movement of the image plane after you focus. Once you have acclimated to using spot metering, you may want to try spot metering in AF-C (continuous) mode as well, which will constantly track moving subjects within the center (or designated) AF point.

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then use spot .. focus lock and recompose ?

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Not sure what you mean by 'focus lock', your finger halfway depressed on the shutter will count as 'focus lock' in some sense.

Manual focus has very limited use in photographing moving subjects, spot focus will be much more useful.

ok cool.. thanks again for the quick reply.

and ya focus lock i mean when you have the shutter depressed halfway... i probably dont know the correct terms yet sorry.

so basically if i want to take a pic of my boy but i dont want him centred in the photo, do i put him in the centre (with spot focus set), focus lock then recompose (on single instead of continuous)? is that the best way ?

Correct - compose the frame, put the eyes in the center, shutter half way to focus and lock, re-compose, shutter the rest of the way.

Also note that blur is also often caused by movememt - the camera and/or the subject. For the subject, you need high shutter speeds or very good timing. For the camera, good technique, Image Stabilization and tripods are the answers.

TF