Camera functions questions?

Question

What does Macro (flower logo), Infinity (Specs logo) and Manual focus (MF) mean?

Answer 1

MACRO:
This means that you can focus your camera to where the object or subject of your picture (like a flower) will be in a ratio of 1:1.
Which means you can focus your camera from far away (flower will be very small in the picture) or way down to where it will be the same size on the picture as it is in real life.

MICRO (which you didn't ask about)
Means that you are taking a picture and "enlarging" an area of your subject. A "Micro-Lens" will only take pictures of a subject
and make them "larger than" their original size...in other words, you are "enlarging" a small area of a subject (like if you wanted to take a picture of the leg on an insect, for example)

INFINITY"
Refers to the position of the focus ring on your camera that will
NOT focus on close up objects, but will keep all objects that are
far away, like mountains or trees over 100 feet away, in sharp focus without you having to do any focusing. If you move closer than 100 ft (or whatever the largest distance shown on your lens is) you then will have to focus the camera yourself, unless you have Auto-Focus...
For example, if you wanted to take a picture of a jet in the sky, or a far away landscape, you would put your focus at the Infinity (inverted 8) mark and not worry about focusing your camera)

MANUAL FOCUS (MF):
This usually means that the camera you are using has both:
Auto-Focus and Manual Focus.
Auto-Focus will focus on the "nearest" object to the lens.
Manual-Focus gives you the choice as to whether you want the camera to "automatically" do the focusing for you (Auto-Focus) or you prefer to focus the camera by yourself (Manual Focus).

"But, why would I want to use Manual Focus?"
There are times when you want to control your "depth-of-field".
That is, to set your camera on a large f/stop (like 2.8) instead of the smaller f/stop (like f/11 or f/16) that your camera would want to set automatically so that you can: for example, when taking a picture of that flower, you want ONLY the flower in focus and the background "fuzzy" or out of focus, using the Manual-Focus feature would allow you to do that.

Answer 2

The Macro function allows your camera to focus clearly when you hold the camera very close to the subject. This is good for taking closeups of small objects, like insects or the insides of flowers. Cameras vary in macro capability, but some allow you to get right next to the subject.

Infinity means to set the focus point to very far away, like in a landscape shot of the mountains. Objects closeup would be blurry, but everything far away would be clear.

Manual Focus means to set the focus point yourself. Normally the camera uses Auto Focus, where it searches for something in the autofocus area and adjusts the focus for you. But most autofocus systems use contrast to find the subject. If the subject has all neutral colors, it will have trouble focusing. Then you might want to use Manual Focus and do it yourself.

Manual focus can also be good for shooting sports events, where the subjects move so fast that the autofocus can't keep up.

Good Luck

Answer 3

macro means you can focus very close, so you can take a photo of a flower and fill the finder with just one petal for example.

infinity mode is for a lanscape. it sets the depth of field (what's in focus) from infinity to quite far. it's useful for landscapes. usually this means a smaller aperture so the the depth of field is very wide (as opposed to portrait where the depth of field is very narrow so only the face is sharp and everything else is blurred.)

MF means that you can adjust the focus manually.

Say you have an object in the distance and a mountain very far.
if you set the focus on the object and the aperture is small (large number) the the mountain will be sharp too. However if you set the focus on the mountain, the object may not be sharp.
so there are a few cases when you want to control the focus manually. another example is you are take a photo of a car passing by you. the focusing will not be quick to react and track the moving car. so you measure the distance to the car, set the focus manually and as soon as the car is where you want it, you take your photo. it's sharp.

Answer 4

Macro means close up, Infinity means long distance and Manual Focus means that you have to focus it yourself