G9 new BIF settings

[GEwart]

These settings work much better with the G9 now, focus locks on to the bird much more consistently and stays with it. I get a much better keeper rate.

I wonder if 'AF/AE Lock' set to 'AF-ON Near' would make a difference with birds flying against a background other than sky?

 

[Trevor Carpenter]

These settings work much better with the G9 now, focus locks on to the bird much more consistently and stays with it. I get a much better keeper rate.

I wonder if 'AF/AE Lock' set to 'AF-ON Near' would make a difference with birds flying against a background other than sky?

I think it does, I'm just not nimble enough with the thumb to use it with flying targets.

 

[Interceptor121]

I included Quick Focus as an untested assumption - as in “who wouldn’t want quick focus?” Now I’m more inclined to leave it off for birding and try to perfect the recommendations of excelsior 121...Hi Burst and careful shutter half press before release. I’m still experimenting with various sensitivity settings and still wondering if they really matter much with BIFs and Animal Detect.

BTW, a well-tuned red dot sight is a huge advantage in nailing that first frame focus.

With regards to the AF near that is not really important if you are shooting to the sky what would be good is a focus limiter to a zone. As far as I know this exists on Olympus but on Panasonic the only way to accomplish is to memorise a focus position on a lens that has a memory like the 200mm f.2.8. So if you don't have a lens with a memory you need to somehow focus the lens to a meaningful distance for subject detection to work decently. This is something to be understood better as it improves the chance of shot 1 being in focus.

 

[Interceptor121]

Example of shot with Set 4 (0 +1 +2) you can see the tracking continuons behind obstacles and for me this confirms only the last setting is really important once the burst is started

What Panasonic AF lacks for BIF

As a user of both Panasonic G9 and Olympus OMD EM1MKII with the start of spring and move from larger animals (deer) to birds I am taking the Olympus camera off the cupboard where it has been since last autumn. Despite the advances of subject and animal detection of the G9 I still find a much...

www.dpreview.com

Tomorrow I will go out in daylight to confirm the others settings are basically not important

 

[SteveY80]

These settings work much better with the G9 now, focus locks on to the bird much more consistently and stays with it. I get a much better keeper rate.

I wonder if 'AF/AE Lock' set to 'AF-ON Near' would make a difference with birds flying against a background other than sky?

I think it does, I'm just not nimble enough with the thumb to use it with flying targets.

My problem with AF-on Near for BIF is the way it shifts focus through the whole range to find the nearest subject.

I try to pre-focus at roughly the correct distance when shooting BIF. That speeds up the initial AF, and means that I can actually see the bird in the EVF, rather than everything being a blur.

When I put the cluster of focus points on the bird and press the AF-on Near button, rather than it nearly instantly focusing (hopefully on the subject rather than the background) it'll instead completely de-focus, looking for something closer to me instead. When it doesn't find anything it'll then hunt out again to hopefully find the more distant bird, but by then I might well have lost it.

Using the 5m-infinity focus limiter on my 100-400mm speeds this up considerably, but it's still slower than normal AF-on. In some circumstances it might be worth it for a better chance of focusing on the bird rather than the background, but I wouldn't say that playing with it increased my success rate.

 

[lescrane]

Thanks for the post.

Can you explain what setting "Wide Auto focus mode" is?

thank you

 

[XVOYAGERX]

great shots, the Pidgeon is awesome, very well done!!

 

[SkiHound]

What do you mean by wide AF mode? I was thinking this was either a relatively large single box, or a somewhat long custom focusing pattern. But you also mention animal detect? So I'm not sure what is meant here.

 

[itsallBb2me]

What do you mean by wide AF mode? I was thinking this was either a relatively large single box, or a somewhat long custom focusing pattern. But you also mention animal detect? So I'm not sure what is meant here.

When you use animal Detect, the focus area is a box. You can choose the size and placement of the box using the down arrow when you select animal Detect. I think that’s what Trevor was referring to.

 

[Interceptor121]

It means nothing and the settings in this thread are superseded anyway

 

[Interceptor121]

No if you press the arrow down and select the area this disables animal detect until you press 'resume' again

You need to leave it as is wondering in the whole frame

 

[Trevor Carpenter]

As this thread has restarted probably worth saying that after a couple of weeks using the set settings above, fairly successfully, I have nevertheless decided to revert to using AFS. Yes the AFC with those setting works good in great conditions but in less than ideal light I am still more comfortable using AFS. I also find myself losing focus because I, the operator have lost the subject when using AFC.

Recent and not so recent pictures here https://trevorc28a.wixsite.com/trevspics
and 2021 birds here https://photos.app.goo.gl/61f38oB1EYAAYAqE7

 

[itsallBb2me]

As this thread has restarted probably worth saying that after a couple of weeks using the set settings above, fairly successfully, I have nevertheless decided to revert to using AFS. Yes the AFC with those setting works good in great conditions but in less than ideal light I am still more comfortable using AFS. I also find myself losing focus because I, the operator have lost the subject when using AFC.

Recent and not so recent pictures here https://trevorc28a.wixsite.com/trevspics
and 2021 birds here https://photos.app.goo.gl/61f38oB1EYAAYAqE7

So you’re using AFS with Animal Detect and, presumably, single frame drive, since burst would quickly go out of focus. Is that right? Shutter release or BBF? Also, do you rapid-click (like a “manual burst”) or choose your shots? Fewer shots to cull? Better hit rate?

Are you seeing better main subject focus, rather than background, this way? Does it “stick with the bird “?

 

[jrsforums]

As this thread has restarted probably worth saying that after a couple of weeks using the set settings above, fairly successfully, I have nevertheless decided to revert to using AFS. Yes the AFC with those setting works good in great conditions but in less than ideal light I am still more comfortable using AFS. I also find myself losing focus because I, the operator have lost the subject when using AFC.

Recent and not so recent pictures here https://trevorc28a.wixsite.com/trevspics
and 2021 birds here https://photos.app.goo.gl/61f38oB1EYAAYAqE7

Agree. Hard to continue to find subject with all the ‘stutter’, etc. going on in viewfinder.

 

[Trevor Carpenter]

As this thread has restarted probably worth saying that after a couple of weeks using the set settings above, fairly successfully, I have nevertheless decided to revert to using AFS. Yes the AFC with those setting works good in great conditions but in less than ideal light I am still more comfortable using AFS. I also find myself losing focus because I, the operator have lost the subject when using AFC.

Recent and not so recent pictures here https://trevorc28a.wixsite.com/trevspics
and 2021 birds here https://photos.app.goo.gl/61f38oB1EYAAYAqE7

So you’re using AFS with Animal Detect and, presumably, single frame drive, since burst would quickly go out of focus. Is that right? Shutter release or BBF? Also, do you rapid-click (like a “manual burst”) or choose your shots? Fewer shots to cull? Better hit rate?

Are you seeing better main subject focus, rather than background, this way? Does it “stick with the bird “?

I'm not using animal detect, decided it has no benefit

I use burst and whether it goes deeply out of focus depends on my relative angle to the bird.

AFS clearly doesn't work with head-ons but I don't get many of them. They also happen to be the one where AFC is unlikely to lose the subject

Shutter release, I just can't coordinate myself enough for BBF plus my thumb needs to be a bit longer.

Definitely seeing better main subject focus and it sticks to the bird because I am half shuttered. I definitely get less background distraction with AFS. IWith AFC if I let the subject slip I've lost it.

 

[Interceptor121]

So in AFS in a burst the focus is fixed at the first shot and once the bird is out of the depth of field you are done

A bit like preburst shot on a fixed point I can't see how this works with a bird flying?

 

[Trevor Carpenter]

So in AFS in a burst the focus is fixed at the first shot and once the bird is out of the depth of field you are done

A bit like preburst shot on a fixed point I can't see how this works with a bird flying?

Because a) birds often fly in the same plane as the focus point

b) You don't stop when you've pressed the shutter button once

c) Once AFS has locked on once it will find the subject again very quickly and isn't distracted by background/foreground, where as AFC loves it.

All these things only apply to people like me who find it very difficult to stay on the subject especially on very fast moving birds.

 

[Interceptor121]

Uhm am not sure about the theory

You are on a fixed point the bird moves on a straight line the distance changes unless the bird does a circle around you so once it goes out of focus you are done

it can probably hold a few shots but definitely not more than that

 

[Trevor Carpenter]

Uhm am not sure about the theory

You are on a fixed point the bird moves on a straight line the distance changes unless the bird does a circle around you so once it goes out of focus you are done

it can probably hold a few shots but definitely not more than that

and generally a few shots is all I want. If I shot at 30fps I rarely do more than 15 that's half a seconds worth. At my normal 9fps, I often get about 3 or 4 shots and that's less than 1/2 a second.

 

[SteveY80]

Uhm am not sure about the theory

You are on a fixed point the bird moves on a straight line the distance changes unless the bird does a circle around you so once it goes out of focus you are done

it can probably hold a few shots but definitely not more than that

and generally a few shots is all I want. If I shot at 30fps I rarely do more than 15 that's half a seconds worth. At my normal 9fps, I often get about 3 or 4 shots and that's less than 1/2 a second.

Do you find that AFS does the job when shooting fast/erratic birds like swallows flitting around?

There were a few chasing flies at my local pond so I had a go at shooting them with my G9 last weekend. I tried using AFC with various settings. Using +2 +2 +2 with release priority set to balanced seemed to give the best results, but my success rate was still very low.

If I tried to track a swallow that was flying towards me, I'd get a few shots at a distance that were sharp, but the CAF wouldn't keep up as it got closer, and all reasonably frame filling shots would be out of focus.

The initial AF lock on was often too slow when just trying to catch one as it flew past or overhead. I'd mash the shutter button and by the time it fired I'd be shooting the swallow's tail end. The few exceptions were when I'd pre-focused fairly well before the shot, reducing the hunting before it locked to the subject.

In an hour or two of shooting I got a few acceptable shots (which is more that I'd get with my GX9), but for every one that's usable:

There were about a dozen out of focus like this:

They're a fairly challenging subject for an AF system so I'm not sure if there are better settings I can use, or if that's about the best I can expect from the G9's DFD.