G3 Birds in flight - best focus settings? (1 Viewer)

Hi,
Please can someone advise if it is best to use One Area Focussing (large box), or 23 Area Focussing for large birds, eg. gulls in flight, against a plain sky?
Lens used is the 100-300mm. Single shot setting.
Many thanks.

I use a GH2, so take my answer with a grain of salt for that reason, but I usually use the multiple focus point setting for faster moving or less predictable birds in flight. That gives the disadvantage that often the focus will be on the closest end of the wing if the bird is side on, so if the bird is slow/big/predictable enough, I will switch to single focus point (small) and try to hit the head as focus point. I usually do not go to large single focus point, sorry.

For context, I usually keep the camera in single point small for all other types of objects (and especially for birds among branches), so this preference might bias how I do the above.

Niels

Hi,

Many thanks for your reply and all the other info I have read of your own and others on here.

I do use the 'small box' or thereabouts for stationery birds and it has worked very well. I have however been very slow on the uptake, as until now, as I have always tried to photograph birds in flight with the 'small box' - but in Raw (hence not using the burst facility), resulting in very few usable frames!

Yesterday I saw that someone on here had been shooting swifts (in the air) with a G(3) I believe, and I could scarcely believe it. Today I went out, and shot large jpgs, on the 23 area focus setting, using burst mode - and absolutely ratted away about 35 shots of two Buzzards high overhead. The birds were sharp in almost every frame. OK the crops were large and the images very grainy on 3200 ISO, but I can cope with that in the usual ways. I have yet to try the / a 'large' focus box and look forward to trying out that alternative.

The more I use this system, (over a year now), the better it seems to get - for it's size!

I would have thought you could burst a few shots in raw on the G3: on the GH2 I shoot jpg+Raw and could rattle off about 7 shots before the buffer fills. I usually burst with 2-3 shots at a time and therefore am able to shoot 10-15 shots before the buffer fills.

Niels

Thanks - I will give that a go.
Keith