Tech Support Pits:

From Penny===

Dear Webby,
There are so many ways to auto-focus with my camera that
I am starting to wish it had a plain and simple manual focus.
Magazine articles about it are no help at all. Those guys just
fill space and try to baffle with BS and big words because 
they don't understand the topic.

I am counting on you to explain it in simple terms or tell me
what to do.
Thanks
Penny

Dear Penny
All those many types of focusing can be divided into two
groups: Spot and Area

Spot, as the name says, focuses things just right for the spot
in the exact center 1 or 2 percent of the picture.

Area, that includes Matrix, Average, Field, etc. uses various 
formulas to sorta average things out. That almost always 
works against you.

A recent example is a picture my dad sent me of my brother
and his daughter on a ski hill. Behind them was a mountain 
with a glacier just to the right of the group. The shiny spring 
ice on the glacier of course was extermely bright in the sun. 
Unfortunately he had the camera set on Matrix or Average,
and everything was too dark, especially the faces of my 
brother and his little daughter. But the glacier was perfect
and showed waves and creases in it.

Obviously, that was not what my dad had intended.
If he had used the SPOT setting and locked it on their faces
by pushing the clicker half way down, then lined up the shot
so as not to saw off any feet or whatever, then the brightness
of the faces would have been perfect and the landscape
a bit too bright. 

Darkening the landscape is no big deal with a paint program,
but getting features to show in underexposed faces is difficult.
Overexposed, too bright and washed out faces are just as bad.
 
In summary, focus on the reason for the picture, lock the
settings by half pressing the shutter, compose (point the 
camera for the actual picture), and click down all the way.

Have FUN!
DearWebby