Birds in canopy — blurry! (1 Viewer)

[Catsongs]

Aloha from Honolulu,

Upgraded from an 80D to an R5 to capture white terns in flight.

The R5 can take some mind-blowingly brilliant shots.

But...

But when the terns fly in and dance about above my head in the canopy, I get hundreds of well-composed blurry photos. Very frustrating.

I'm shooting TV with 1/1250 to 1/1600 shutter speed. Using the 70-200mm lens.

The problem is clearly the focusing. The R5 can't find something in the terns' plumage to focus on.

I've tried a variety of AF options, but no luck so far.

Honestly, I think I did better under the canopy with the 80D.

I'm attaching a (screenshot) or a typical shot, one I trash. I've save a number for diagnostic purposes.

Any thoughts would be gratefully received!

Cat

 

[Brad Hacker]

This is the experience that (AFAIK) all R5 shooters have with small birds, birds with eyes that do not contrast with the body, and birds in flight. In some cases for birds in flight you can mitigate the problems by using back-button focus and rocking back and forth between spot focus and eye focus, diddling with tracking sensitivity and accel/decel, turning off image stabilization, using crop mode or a T/C to make the bird fill more of the frame, using a prime lens (allows lower f/ with more light), and not tracking the bird too far with Servo AF if you can avoid it (tap spot focus until you want to start shooting and then switch to Servo when you are ready to get pictures; it seems that the R5 loses tracking if the Servo AF is on too long).
With an R5, I suggest you shoot in M mode, set the f/ and shutter speed that you want, and let the camera pick the ISO; one of the great strengths of the R5 is its high-ISO performance allowing you to maximize the amount of light hitting the sensor with low f/ (altho with a zoom you should probably stop down a bit to improve sharpness).

• I'm sure there are some other tricks...if anyone knows some, please "speak" up.
• There are cameras other than the R5, of course, that may be better, but I've never found a direct and clear comparison on the internet of different Canon R bodies or of the R5 vs Sony vs Nikon. A friend of mine with R5+600 prime AND an A1+600 prime says the A1 is slightly better.

Welcome to mirrorless cameras...in some ways vastly better than DSLR (e.g. in low light), in some ways worse.
Personally, I'm waiting to see if the R5 mark II is any better for birds...if not I may be headed toward Sony or Nikon, but again, the (apparent?) absence of excellent comparisons--as opposed to hearsay--makes knowing which model to use difficult.

 

[mike nesbitt]

This is the experience that (AFAIK) all R5 shooters have with small birds, birds with eyes that do not contrast with the body, and birds in flight. In some cases for birds in flight you can mitigate the problems by using back-button focus and rocking back and forth between spot focus and eye focus, diddling with tracking sensitivity and accel/decel, turning off image stabilization, using crop mode or a T/C to make the bird fill more of the frame, using a prime lens (allows lower f/ with more light), and not tracking the bird too far with Servo AF if you can avoid it (tap spot focus until you want to start shooting and then switch to Servo when you are ready to get pictures; it seems that the R5 loses tracking if the Servo AF is on too long).
With an R5, I suggest you shoot in M mode, set the f/ and shutter speed that you want, and let the camera pick the ISO; one of the great strengths of the R5 is its high-ISO performance allowing you to maximize the amount of light hitting the sensor with low f/ (altho with a zoom you should probably stop down a bit to improve sharpness).

• I'm sure there are some other tricks...if anyone knows some, please "speak" up.
• There are cameras other than the R5, of course, that may be better, but I've never found a direct and clear comparison on the internet of different Canon R bodies or of the R5 vs Sony vs Nikon. A friend of mine with R5+600 prime AND an A1+600 prime says the A1 is slightly better.

Welcome to mirrorless cameras...in some ways vastly better than DSLR (e.g. in low light), in some ways worse.
Personally, I'm waiting to see if the R5 mark II is any better for birds...if not I may be headed toward Sony or Nikon, but again, the (apparent?) absence of excellent comparisons--as opposed to hearsay--makes knowing which model to use difficult.

"it seems that the R5 loses tracking if the Servo AF is on too long"

Every day is a school day!
I've encountered this so many times and honestly never knew that this was the reason for it.
Some food for thought there, thanks for that.