Manual Focus HELP
 

We use the GL2 for a hunting and fishing show. We recently were goose hunting and we could not keep the geese in focus! We were in the manual setting but the geese continually went in and out of focus. Not sure why, we have had no problems with the little sony cameras we use but have struggled with the Gl2. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks John

Welcome John,
I'm going to make an educated guess that you may have had the camera in manual exposure mode but you did not have the lens in manual focus mode. They are separate settings. This is a very common complaint from those new to the GL2.

If you are sure your lens was in manual focus mode, my second guess would be that you were not in manual exposure mode. Perhaps you were using one of the program exposure modes and the camera was adjusting the iris, thus potentially affecting your depth of field.

Beyond that, I'm out of guesses.

MF
 

Ken, forgive me but I'm new at this so could you tell me what setting I need to ajust. We had it on MF by pressing the MF button on the side of the camera but that was it.

OK, well that eliminates my "educated guess" #1. It sounds like the lens was in manual focus mode.

So that leaves guess #2; the camera was managing exposure with the iris through a program mode.

So it needs to be in manual program mode also ?

In order to truly control the iris, and your depth of field, yes.

One alternative would be to use Av (aperture priority) mode, set your aperture, pull focus, and let the camera modulate shutter speed to control exposure. This should hold your focus but, under extreme lighting differences, might have adverse effects on your imaging due to shutter speed changes.

Experiment in the field to see what technique seems to work best for you.