As good as the Nikon autofocus system is, there are times when it just isn’t doing the job for you. Often this has to do with how you would like to compose a scene and where the actual point of focus should be. This can be especially true when you
are using the camera on a tripod, where you can’t prefocus and then recompose before shooting (as discussed earlier). To take care of this problem, you will need to manually focus the lens. I am only going to cover the kit lens that came with my
D7000 (the 18–105mm VR), so if you have purchased a different lens be sure to check the accompanying instruction manual for the lens.
On the 18-105mm kit lens, you simply need to slide the switch located at the base of the lens (located on the lens barrel near the body of the camera) from the A setting to the M setting (Figure 1.6). You can now turn the focus ring at the end of the lens to set your focus. Now that you’re in manual focus mode, the camera will not give you any notification when you have correctly focused.
