DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

Settings for birds in flight, tips please

Started Feb 11, 2012 | Discussions thread
ForumParentFirstPrevious
Flat view
guitarjeff
guitarjeff Senior Member • Posts: 1,985
Settings for birds in flight, tips please

I want to shoot birds in flight, but I am confused on what settings to use.

Af points, I can see two different ways. If the bird is in frame with other objects, then center focus point seems like it would be good. But birds are hard to get the frame on, especially zoomed to 250mm. If the bird is alone in the frame with only sky, it seems like Automatic focus point selection would be better because you may not be able to get the bird exactly center frame, and if you can't, the AI focus points can latch one anywhere as long as the bird is the only object in frame.

Then, i hear that AI servo is best so that the camera will continue to focus on the moving target, but will it interfere with continuous shooting giving you less opportunities?

What settings does the Auto Sports mode use for moving subjects, and would the same apply to flying birds?

I just would love some opinions on how I should set my T1i when I am going after flying birds, what are the tradeoffs in some of the settings.

Would it be adbisable to just leave my camera in center point AF and AI servo all the time? the manual says even in AI servo it still focuses once unless it detects movement, and shouldn't we always want the camera to refocus if it detects movement?

I would love a bunch of opinions on what settings you guys leave your cameras in most of the time.

Thanks for any help.

Canon EOS 500D (EOS Rebel T1i / EOS Kiss X3)
If you believe there are incorrect tags, please send us this post using our feedback form.
ForumParentFirstPrevious
Flat view
ForumParentFirstPrevious
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow