Birds... Fast Birds... Focus Help Needed w/7D 70-200 f2.8 USM IS II

Wei Kelun wrote:

This is a crappy photo in many ways, but I managed to do it with single point AF aimed right at the gull's eye, with the same camera and lens you're using. It turned out that the bird moved a bit in the microsecond between achieving focus and snapping the shot, showing just how complicated this all is. The chosen (single) AF point is directly on the bird's eye ("I'm awesome!!!!") but the area of maximal sharpness is just past the bird's right shoulder.

Anyway, not to say this is a great attempt, it's not, but more to say I feel your pain. I have been using back button focus with AI Servo for a few weeks now, and although I'm still getting used to it, I'm already finding it much, much easier and more intuitive than using the shutter half-press for focus. Also, BBF actually makes AI Servo more useful, in that it reverts to One Shot (should you want that) just by letting your finger off the back button, no need to think about changing modes.

Anyway, great discussion so far, I'm learning a lot.