Just wondering if anybody's tried forcing a focus range in macro? This question is aimed at those out there with point and shoot deals that only have autofocus. I've been having problems getting the camera to recognize what my subject is. It seems as if it would rather focus on everything behind my subject. So I get a way blurry insect perched on a leaf, and the foilage in the distance is all clear. I'm thinking I might be able to trick the camera by using a card or something with an image with reasonable amount of contrast and holding it at the desired range. If I remember right, these types of cameras hold their focus provided I can keep the shutter button held down halfway. Of course I'll still have to eyeball the range when aiming back at my subject, so this still might not be perfect. Anybody else out there suffer from this problem, any good suggestions? BTW, the camera I'm using is a Toshiba PDR-M60.

Sounds like a reasonable thing to try....although I usually use the manual focus on my digi, if I am in autofocus mode I will often focus on the object, then with the shutter partially depressed I will recompose the image the way I wanted it. So I suppose focusing on an object which is the same distance from the lens as the subject should work. This autofocus thing is a common problem for digi cams when the light is low or the subject is low contrast....

Yeah, I wish mine had manual. The AF is the most problematic thing about it.

Can't turn it off? That's progress, I guess...

Not that this will help...(yes - I'm back for a bit after a brief break from everything) - but I found this interesting - but don't try it at home. I read about a guy who's main subject was model railroads - and wanted to get a "realistic" depth-of-field to make the shots of his models look real. His solution was to actually open up the lens and replace the aperture with a disc of tin with a pinhole - in essence an aperture of something like f:512 or something - of course this resulted in very long exposures, but I guess it's pretty easy to stop a model train.

paul, yeah - I used to do that too - focus on something other than the main object, button halfway down... it works, but I gorra admit I much prefer the manual focus facility.... (",)