I'm new to photography and have been reading a lot of books about landscape photography and using a digital camera (I have a Canon 20D). In reading John Shaw's book on Nature Photography, I am dealing with using different modes such as aperture priority.
Using his suggestions, I've been trying AP and AF as follows: first set the focus (using only the center point as suggested in a number of articles), pressing shutter half way down. Then, aim at a midtone (possibly adding compensation) and lock AE, and finally recompose. I've experimented with the process hand-holding the camera and am getting the hang of it.
The problem is when I began using my wife's tripod, an inexpensive pan/tilt head type (I know, I'll need to save up for a good one). Focusing, AE, recompose - how do you do this while maneuvering the camera on the tripod? It's easy to do hand-holding it, but on a tripod, it seems nearly impossible (the main problem is aiming the camera at focus point then midtone or whatever I want to meter on, then recomposing using pan and/or tilt).
Should I instead be using manual mode after metering so I don't have to keep one or two buttons depressed to lock focus/exposure while reaiming the camera? Any suggestions? Thanks.
- Pierre