Last week I was teaching a workshop in Colorado Springs, Colorado. One morning a few of us went to Garden of the Gods, a spectacular place to shoot photos. While walking around the rock formations, a woman came up and asked for some help. I thought her question would make a great blog entry
Approaching me, she asked, "I thought you might know something about photography." I guess the 15 lbs. of camera gear hanging off of me tipped her off! She explained that they'd recently bought a compact camera to take on this vacation. They'd been shooting pictures for a few days, and had brought a computer and were downloading. The problem was that while the photos looked fine on the computer, they never looked in focus through the camera. I like it when people come up with easy questions.
Almost every camera has a diopter built into the viewfinder. It can be adjusted with a dial or slider to the side of the finder. It lets you adjust the focus of the viewfinder (NOT the lens). That means that you can fine-tune the focus of the viewfinder to your eyesight, which is a good thing. You do that by holding the camera up to your eye, looking at some of the brackets or lines inside the viewfinder, and then moving the dial/slider. You'll see those lines go in and out of focus. Get them in focus and leave it.
The downside to the diopter adjustment is that sometimes those dials and sliders are easily bumped, which will throw the viewfinder focus off. That's exactly the problem this lady was having, and I could tell as soon as I held the camera up to my eye. It almost hurt to look through the viewfinder. And the problem was the diopter, because it had a dial that would get bumped every time the camera hung at her side. I showed her how to set it ("Oh my goodness, that's great!"), and then suggested she put a piece of tape over it to keep it from getting moved.
I love easy questions from people, and that's one of them. It's also an easy way to impress your friends, since almost no one knows that adjustment is there. Grab their camera, take a look through, and help them set it properly. In return, tell them they can buy you lunch!
