I shoot wildlife with my D7500, Tamron 100-400, almost always handheld cuz I'm not fast enough to spot and capture the birds in flight or on the move that I often shoot with a tripod or monopod.
In the four years or so that I've had my 7500, I use all manual settings except autofocus, which I used to use on AF-S, single point of focus, lock the focus in on the middle focus point by depressing the shutter release button half-way and either take the shot, hold it down half-way and recompose, or hold it down half-way and track the movement of the shot, trying to keep the moving subject under that locked focus point. I got a reasonable amount of good images, in focus, but felt like I wasn't utilizing half of the camera's capabilities with AF-C. And, given that most of what I shoot in nature is moving, I wanted to utilize AF-C. So... I tried many times with various settings (i.e. small number of focus points, larger number of focus points, single point, dynamic, etc etc), and was simply just not as successful - rarely got good sharp shots. I came here for advice, tried various things, but rarely found the AF-C successful in capturing sharp shots.
Then I switched to BBAF, which, of course requires keeping the focus setting on AF-C, and I switched AF Priority from 'focus' to 'release' per advice from other photographers on the forums here. BBAF seemed like a great idea - best of both worlds without having to manually switch from AF-S to AF-C in the field, etc, but for the seven months or so since I switched over I'm finding that I very rarely get good super crisp shots with anything moving. Even if an image is fairly good, it's still a little soft. I thought perhaps it's cuz of handholding and the shake I introduce, but got same result with monopod and resting on something. So... now that you've all heard my sad story, here are my questions:
1. Is the BB I appropriated (AE/AF-lock) for BBAF simply not as fast or accurate somehow as the shutter release button on the D7500?
2. Can depressing the shutter release half-way to lock a target in focus under the center focus point and moving along with the moving target keep that moving target in focus better than AF-C for some reason?
3. Might Focus priority be better than Release priority despite all advice to the contrary?
4. Since, for whatever reason, I've not been able to get AF-C to work well for me most of the time to capture moving subjects, and despite my reluctance to not make use of half my camera's capability - is it accurate to think that my old method (depressing shutter release half-way and holding it while moving camera to track moving subject) works as well as BBAF with the BB held in while moving the camera? Or, not so much?
Really been bumming me out how lousy most of my images have been lately - I'd like to get back to feeling successful in focusing images a reasonable percentage of the time again!
Thanks in advance for your thoughts/help with this!
In the four years or so that I've had my 7500, I use all manual settings except autofocus, which I used to use on AF-S, single point of focus, lock the focus in on the middle focus point by depressing the shutter release button half-way and either take the shot, hold it down half-way and recompose, or hold it down half-way and track the movement of the shot, trying to keep the moving subject under that locked focus point. I got a reasonable amount of good images, in focus, but felt like I wasn't utilizing half of the camera's capabilities with AF-C. And, given that most of what I shoot in nature is moving, I wanted to utilize AF-C. So... I tried many times with various settings (i.e. small number of focus points, larger number of focus points, single point, dynamic, etc etc), and was simply just not as successful - rarely got good sharp shots. I came here for advice, tried various things, but rarely found the AF-C successful in capturing sharp shots.
Then I switched to BBAF, which, of course requires keeping the focus setting on AF-C, and I switched AF Priority from 'focus' to 'release' per advice from other photographers on the forums here. BBAF seemed like a great idea - best of both worlds without having to manually switch from AF-S to AF-C in the field, etc, but for the seven months or so since I switched over I'm finding that I very rarely get good super crisp shots with anything moving. Even if an image is fairly good, it's still a little soft. I thought perhaps it's cuz of handholding and the shake I introduce, but got same result with monopod and resting on something. So... now that you've all heard my sad story, here are my questions:
1. Is the BB I appropriated (AE/AF-lock) for BBAF simply not as fast or accurate somehow as the shutter release button on the D7500?
2. Can depressing the shutter release half-way to lock a target in focus under the center focus point and moving along with the moving target keep that moving target in focus better than AF-C for some reason?
3. Might Focus priority be better than Release priority despite all advice to the contrary?
4. Since, for whatever reason, I've not been able to get AF-C to work well for me most of the time to capture moving subjects, and despite my reluctance to not make use of half my camera's capability - is it accurate to think that my old method (depressing shutter release half-way and holding it while moving camera to track moving subject) works as well as BBAF with the BB held in while moving the camera? Or, not so much?
Really been bumming me out how lousy most of my images have been lately - I'd like to get back to feeling successful in focusing images a reasonable percentage of the time again!
Thanks in advance for your thoughts/help with this!
