I'm finding it tricky to recomposing an image especially when shooting with large aperture when dof is really shallow. For example:



Taken at f2.8 and manually recomposed. You can clearly see that my dog is not perfectly in focus (sharpest) but the grass, to the lower portion of my dog, is shar[ because I moved the lens downwards.

I dun think my camera body has enough resolution to shoot things in center and crop...should I be using a different focusing point instead?

Please don't tell me my lens is front focussing, if you do, you are clearly a bigger n00b than I am

I know about focusing error from recomposing, and this problem has nothing to do with focusing error in that regard. In fact, like you said, focusing error of such degree is negligible at this focal length/magnification size...this isnt macro

The problem is in fact the sharpest point is at the center (center point focus). When I pan the lens downwards, the focus is still locked at the specific distance but the subject is no longer at the center....and the center point is now the grass...I could step my lens down to get an overall sharper image but that would defeat the purpose...I want my bokeh

damn D50 doesnt have auto focus point selection like the D80 and etc.

Actually D50 has only 5 focus point. I use center focus point when taking the picture as I mentioned in my previous post.

Yup, shallow DOF is awesome, but too bad I cant manually recompose it without moving the sharpest focus point...well unless the subject is really tiny.

Yeah honestly....nikon professional body...problem solved

My AE-L/AF-L button is set to lock exposure. The shutter button locks the focus, so there is no need to use the AE button to lock focus.

The problem also has nothing to do with AF-S/AF-C. AF-C would always attempt to focus the subject within the selected AF point if the subjects moves away (best combo with dynamic), but it doesnt allow for recomposing when the AF point is set to center because once the lens is moved to focus on the grass...which is the center, the body will automatically focus on the grass. You just can't recompose with AF-C, AF-S is the only way.

Anyway, the solution is to select the proper af point. How I wish the AI is smarter...I think even the 350D's AI-servo is much smarter than the D50/80

you sure it's not your lens that has center defect? I believe the background should be evenly OOF form the focus point if it is in the center.

I've wanted to pick up something around the S5/D200 range body by end of the year but while I was looking at S5's price with the grip, maybe it'd be better off to just get the D2x(s) for a little more $$.