Another day with the raptors
- This topic has 4 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated Jan 10, 2008 at 8:48 pm by
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….I have to tell you, it is MADDENING to miss some photos!
From this morning’s shoot, there were a couple that I’d KILL to have had in focus. Things are just happening too fast, or there’s so many times that focus is shifting about, or, or, or……yes, I know – excuses.
Nice Kendal.
….I have to tell you, it is MADDENING to miss some photos!
Yes it is 🙂
Ive been trying hard to capture a sequence of that special moment just before impact of a Harris smoking a rabbit. Trying to anticpate sightlines in the scrub is the hard part and then I need to get lucky.For BiF (Birds in Flight) you want todo everything you can to squeeze every last drop out of your sytems AF speed. This is all about hardware but there are a couple things you can do. Make sure you on center point only af, if your lens has a limiter switch set it to smaller of the two and if you can try to “preset” focus by preiodically focusing on anything at a distance that would be where a majority of flybys take place.
The limiter switch reduces how much the lens will look to acheive focus. At maximum it will “search” from its MFD to infinty. So if you set it at its smaller option it will only search through a smaller range.
It helps alot with acquiring initial focus.if most action takes place somewhere betweeen 30 and 50 feet anytime you focus outside that, “preset” focus by locking onto something around 30 feet away. That way if something does happen at 40feet, the lens is dialed into 30feet and it can focus that much faster.
With the speed these birds move at fractions of a second make a large difference. Hope you dont mind me adding 2 frames to your post but it should illustrate just how much a difference it can make.
keep in mind I get 8 frames/second
Image # 7435
Image # 7436….1/8th of a second later
The two frames may as well be completely different images. Not only is it considerably closer in #2 its entire body posture is different just .125 of a second later.
That fraction of a second can mean the difference between a shot thats on your wall and one that leaves you cursing a blue streak as focus as just off.
Nice Kendal.
….I have to tell you, it is MADDENING to miss some photos!
Yes it is 🙂
Ive been trying hard to capture a sequence of that special moment just before impact of a Harris smoking a rabbit. Trying to anticpate sightlines in the scrub is the hard part and then I need to get lucky.For BiF (Birds in Flight) you want todo everything you can to squeeze every last drop out of your sytems AF speed. This is all about hardware but there are a couple things you can do. Make sure you on center point only af, if your lens has a limiter switch set it to smaller of the two and if you can try to “preset” focus by preiodically focusing on anything at a distance that would be where a majority of flybys take place.
The limiter switch reduces how much the lens will look to acheive focus. At maximum it will “search” from its MFD to infinty. So if you set it at its smaller option it will only search through a smaller range.
It helps alot with acquiring initial focus.if most action takes place somewhere betweeen 30 and 50 feet anytime you focus outside that, “preset” focus by locking onto something around 30 feet away. That way if something does happen at 40feet, the lens is dialed into 30feet and it can focus that much faster.
With the speed these birds move at fractions of a second make a large difference. Hope you dont mind me adding 2 frames to your post but it should illustrate just how much a difference it can make.
keep in mind I get 8 frames/second
Image # 7435Image # 7436….1/8th of a second later
The two frames may as well be completely different images. Not only is it considerably closer in #2 its entire body posture is different just .125 of a second later.
That fraction of a second can mean the difference between a shot thats on your wall and one that leaves you cursing a blue streak as focus as just off.
Hope I don’t mind?
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