I am curious, which focus modes and methods (AF or manual, S, C, single point, dynamic or closest priority) do most of you use for formal portrait and wedding work, when subjects are relatively stationery?

Thank you in advance.

Judit Langh

Hi Judit,

Welcome to Nikonians!
For portraits; use AF-S (Single Servo AF) mode, and Single Point AF.
Use your subjects eye for your AF target.
Good Luck and Enjoy your Nikons!

Best Regards,
Marty

A technique you could try is to use the AF-on button with the shutter release disabled for focussing, using custom setting A5. If you couple this with continuous focus, you can decide shot by shot, without altering your settings, whether to continually focus (by keeping your thumb on the button), or to set focus and recompose (releasing the button when you have achieved the focus you want), or to do a combination of both, for example tracking focus for a while and then recomposing. This approach works well for non-static situations, eg informal shots of people, but it does take a little time to get used to. A further wrinkle to be aware of is that VR lenses don't start to stabilise the image until the shutter release is half-depressed, so ideally when using VR you should use a shutter half-press as well as the AF-on button.

I would also agree with using single point AF. Assuming that your portrait subjects are not incredibly fast moving, focus priority should work fine.

Thom Hogan's D700 guide gives you more detail on these techniques.

Bridget