Turning Off the Beep

There are certain sports, like tennis or golf, where being quiet and unobtrusive is the name of the game for a photographer (yes, they sometimes will yell at you if you bring any undue attention to yourself), and one simple thing you can do so you don’t stick out is to turn off your camera’s autofocus beep—that little audible beep that lets you know your autofocus has locked on. Instead, turn that off, then just look in the viewfinder for the visible signal that your focus has locked on (on Nikon cameras, it’s the Focus Indicator—the solid round circle on the bottom-left side of the viewfinder. On Canon cameras, it’s called the Focus Confirmation Light, and it’s found at the bottom right of the viewfinder). That way, the only sound they’ll hear is your shutter. To turn off the beep on a Nikon camera, go to the Custom Setting menu, under Shooting/Display, choose Beep, and set it to Off. On Canon cameras, go under the Shooting 1 menu, choose Beep, and set it to Off, as shown above.