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Why isn’t AF picking up these birds?

Started 10 months ago | Questions thread
PicPocket Veteran Member • Posts: 5,897
Re: Help with this one…
1

Texchappy wrote:

Dareshooter wrote:

Texchappy wrote:

I’d love to have had the bird in flight sharp but wasn’t quick enough.

I’m waiting to get a good shot if this pretty punk but he won’t cooperate…

In a situation like this try manually pre-focusing on the spot where the birds are likely to land . You also need to be shooting at faster shutter speeds to freeze any subject movement as 1/400th of a second is nowhere near fast enough for these nippy little devils 😊

Shooting in Fv, I had set the shutter above 1000 but I automaticed it for some I know reason. D’oh! I’m sure if I’d look I would have had the focus point on the bird in the feeder.

For staged shoots like these, you can even go full manual if the ambient light is not changing. Then you get consistent metering too without any bias from subject moving around. You already know what the well lit and shadow part of bird look like and that's all that you meter for

If you are not sure, or if light is changing due to clouds etc, you can be in M with auto ISO and any required exposure comp.

I prefer M, Av, TV to Fv because the buttons have fixed meanings. I don't risk accidentally changing something else based on current selection, or keep eye on selection itself in addition to settings

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