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What Focusing Points To You Use? (1 Viewer)

S

stefeb

Well-known member
Do you use auto focus, or manually adjust the focus point?

I'm having the problem of what seems to be the bird disappearing on me.

Find bird, focus, then bird goes out of focus, disappears, and what appears in viewfinder is way beyond bird.

Thanks.
 
stefeb said:
Do you use auto focus, or manually adjust the focus point?

I'm having the problem of what seems to be the bird disappearing on me.

Find bird, focus, then bird goes out of focus, disappears, and what appears in viewfinder is way beyond bird.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I had the same problem, then realised the auto focus point was set to the extreme right-hand side! You'll see a little red light in the box it's set to as you half-press the shutter release. I simply changed this to the centre and bingo! Only a problem if the bird is distant, or in flight, as it can be hard to keep the bird central in the viewfinder.

Another problem I get is when I'm changing from photographing a close bird to one that's further away, or vice versa. There's a setting for autofocus on the lens for 3.5m - infinity and 8m - infinity (or thereabouts). If you have it on the 3.5m setting for a distant bird, or the 8m for a close bird, the autofocus will not work properly.
 
i just set centre point if you let the camera chose it will be all over the place unless for bif the sky is one tone then i might set all of them .
Rob.
 
Mostly centre point but for perched birds, in particular large birds and owls I tend to select whichever single point gives the best framing. I try to place the single point over the head so usually it's the top point.
 
macshark said:
Center point only most of the time.

When shooting birds in flight across blue sky, I use all AF points.
Click to expand...

I've been using centre point focusing for everything up until now but I was thinking of using all AF points for flight shots against a blue sky, especially for smaller birds where its hard to fix the centre point on the bird. I had real problems trying to get flying Lapwings in focus. After reading this thread I'm definitely going to test it.
Graham
 
macshark said:
Center point only most of the time.

When shooting birds in flight across blue sky, I use all AF points.
Click to expand...
I've tried this as well, but couldn't get it to work for me. The problem I found was that was that when panning as soon as a section of horizon came into view the focus jumped to that and even a whisp of cloud caused focus to jump. I found it more frustrating using all points selected than just the one. It maybe that since we seldom have totally clear blue skies the technique isn't as effective.

Using one point selected and continuous panning for flight shots I find the most successful. I find that even if focus does jump out at some point that f you keep panning it will often snap back on the bird again.
 
IanF said:
I've tried this as well, but couldn't get it to work for me. The problem I found was that was that when panning as soon as a section oh horizon came into view the focus jumped to that and even a whisp of cloud caused focus to jump. I found it more frustrating using all points selected than just the one. It maybe that since we seldom have totally clear blue skies the technique isn't as effective.

Using one point selected and continuous panning for flight shots I find the most successful. I find that even if focus does jump out at some point that f you keep panning it will often snap back on the bird again.
Click to expand...

This is true. Especially the 350D I am using gets very confused if there is anything in the background if when using all AF points. I haven't tried it but based on what I have heard on many others, 1D bodies do much better in tracking the subjects over a busy background in servo mode.

For large birds with predictable flight patterns (hawks, pelicans, etc.), center point AF in servo mode works OK for flight shots, however, for smaller birds or birds with very unpredictable flight patterns, using all AF points and hoping for a blue sky background is my only option for now. Now that the 20D/30D AF system is in the 400D, hopefully the 30D successor will have a better AF system...
 
I only use one focusing point, but it is very quick - on a 350 anyway - to swap to the most appropriate point. I find this is usually the centre, but certainly not always.
 
Thanks to all. I've changed to using the center point and the results have been great. Please accept my apologies for not posting my thanks sooner.
 
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