Auto focus vs manual focus

Knowing how to use all the features on your camera is really, really helpful when it comes to creating interesting images. The most important one to learn is how to use the manual focus. Manual focus lets you decide exactly what you want to be in focus, and what you want out of the focus. When there are a lot of different objects at different distances, some cameras can't figure out what to focus on.

You probably have a button labeled focus, or AF/MF that switches the auto focus on or off. If you don't see anything like that, check your camera's manual. Once you get it into manual focus, experiment with focusing on things that are only a few feet from the camera. You'll see how some things are in very sharp focus, and the background gets blurry. This is how you can control what the viewer sees when they look at your pictures.

Here's a picture I took that would have been impossible without manual focusing:

When I pointed my camera at this cactus, the camera wanted to focus on the thorns, the ground, everything BUT the flower. I switched it to manual and I could focus precisely on what I wanted to. Neat, eh?