X-H2S subject tracking miss

CeeDave wrote:

Morris0 wrote:

CeeDave wrote:

Morris0 wrote:

Mikeywcu wrote:

CeeDave wrote:

Mikeywcu wrote:

We took the kids for a spontaneous trip to DC to hit the Natural History Museum. People eat right outside of the museum, so the birds get close. We sat and had ice cream, and someone had left a crumbled cracker in the dirt. I had the xh2s and the 33 1.4, and I couldn’t believe the degree to which it struggled to recognize the birds, especially since they were within two feet. Zone focus, using the joystick to put focus right over the birds…still…many misses.

You are shooting low contrast backlit subjects at f/1.4, for no apparent reason. This looks like user error, not a camera problem, to me.

Love the “no apparent reason” part.

Sure, open to the feedback. It wasn’t a bird outing…just snapping. Still, I was surprised at the degree to which the cam struggled to actually locate the birds while focusing.

Birds are usually shot wide open.

Morris

But not at such short distances, and not at f/1.4, which does affect focus depth, I think. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’d love to see other bird photos at f/1.4.

Here you go. 50mm f1.4 images of a great egret from about 2 feet

Morris

Great examples, thanks. Works well aesthetically (and for AF) when the background is well separated from the subject (in distance, hue, tone and/or texture).

There is no reason AF should miss a subject close to a busy background.  It's a common challenge we face all the time and when not using subject tracking one selects focus on the subject using zone or single point.  With subject tracking, the concept is the camera takes over this task and it's what I've experienced with Z9, A1, OM1, and X-H2s.  Something went wrong for the OP and I don't know what though it makes me wonder about the X-H2s.  It sounds like it was not tracking.  It could be camera setup or firmware.

Morris