Autofocus most likely limitations, my camera or lens? (Or me!)

cdmazoff wrote:

benjilafouine wrote:

Have you tried single AF point? I’m not a BIF specialist as some other people here but I do a lot of birding and CDMazoff, one of our kingpins around here told me to stick with single AF point.

I have no experience with your tamron lens but BIF require fast lens.

I’m using the original 7D from 2009 and it’s doing a good job except for ISO noise at 1600 and over but for the rest, it works fine. I stick to the single AF point 99% of the time along with the AI servo function. Basically I created a custom function at 1/1600, f5.6, AI servo, and Auto ISO. In some occasions I will slow speed to 1/1000 and/or aperture at f5.6 or 6.3 (my lens combo is limited at f5.6) but I always stick to these values. I also have a second setup with automatic exposure compensation at 1/3 and it often helps.

Thanks for the compliment Benji, although everything I learned (mostly) I learned on this forum!!! Way to go Digi an my old friend Mocha (wherever he is)

Basically thsi is what I've found. The 90D makes a BIG difference to me because I get my shots at either end of the burst and not the middle. Go figger. It think is has to do with my brain lag rhythm... So, for instance the Purple Martin's in flight? Wow,, but I took those after he stopped flying.. (or so I thought)

On the ground here in Victoria I have been mentored by Kip Hutchison and Gary Woodburn among others...

My basic setup is use a MONOPOD..... If possible use 9 point but focus on centre point. Always test shots for EC. If glarey use partial metering; if not, use evaluative (thanks Rocket)

If birds are on a perch or a nest (like the Osprey coming in...PRE-FOCUS... Use either 9 point or SPOT focus of center point of 9

If you have enough light, put the shutter speed up!!!!

ISO on the 90D is VARIABLE depending on time of year and angle of sun...Not all 6400s work.. Ask Digi about this. He's the high ISO king..

MOST IMPORTANT; Study your birds.... and then prefocus the area if you can.. You don't want to chase them; you want to capture them when they enter your zone.

Last rule.. All great shot happen by accident!!!

Very interesting. I will use DSLR purely for wildlife, XT30 and EVF for everything else. So 90d is expensive given what you’ve just said.

My t7i will trade for 335pounds, and a used 80d is about 660pounds. So it’s about 300pounds if i wanted to go that route. If i wanted to do a serious day out, i could stick a battery grip on it too. Hmmmmmm. Then again Canons just said it wont even make another 5D DSLR, so DSLR support seems to be over.

I’m just not sure, how effective the adjustable tracking in the 80d would be. Since same sensor same 45pt AF, would it have same keeper rate? Or in your experience does the tracking customisation settings allow for a reasonable increase in keeper rates?

Ad12 wrote:

cdmazoff wrote:

benjilafouine wrote:

Have you tried single AF point? I’m not a BIF specialist as some other people here but I do a lot of birding and CDMazoff, one of our kingpins around here told me to stick with single AF point.

I have no experience with your tamron lens but BIF require fast lens.

I’m using the original 7D from 2009 and it’s doing a good job except for ISO noise at 1600 and over but for the rest, it works fine. I stick to the single AF point 99% of the time along with the AI servo function. Basically I created a custom function at 1/1600, f5.6, AI servo, and Auto ISO. In some occasions I will slow speed to 1/1000 and/or aperture at f5.6 or 6.3 (my lens combo is limited at f5.6) but I always stick to these values. I also have a second setup with automatic exposure compensation at 1/3 and it often helps.

Thanks for the compliment Benji, although everything I learned (mostly) I learned on this forum!!! Way to go Digi an my old friend Mocha (wherever he is)

Basically thsi is what I've found. The 90D makes a BIG difference to me because I get my shots at either end of the burst and not the middle. Go figger. It think is has to do with my brain lag rhythm... So, for instance the Purple Martin's in flight? Wow,, but I took those after he stopped flying.. (or so I thought)

On the ground here in Victoria I have been mentored by Kip Hutchison and Gary Woodburn among others...

My basic setup is use a MONOPOD..... If possible use 9 point but focus on centre point. Always test shots for EC. If glarey use partial metering; if not, use evaluative (thanks Rocket)

If birds are on a perch or a nest (like the Osprey coming in...PRE-FOCUS... Use either 9 point or SPOT focus of center point of 9

If you have enough light, put the shutter speed up!!!!

ISO on the 90D is VARIABLE depending on time of year and angle of sun...Not all 6400s work.. Ask Digi about this. He's the high ISO king..

MOST IMPORTANT; Study your birds.... and then prefocus the area if you can.. You don't want to chase them; you want to capture them when they enter your zone.

Last rule.. All great shot happen by accident!!!

Very interesting. I will use DSLR purely for wildlife, XT30 and EVF for everything else. So 90d is expensive given what you’ve just said.

My t7i will trade for 335pounds, and a used 80d is about 660pounds. So it’s about 300pounds if i wanted to go that route. If i wanted to do a serious day out, i could stick a battery grip on it too. Hmmmmmm. Then again Canons just said it wont even make another 5D DSLR, so DSLR support seems to be over.

I’m just not sure, how effective the adjustable tracking in the 80d would be. Since same sensor same 45pt AF, would it have same keeper rate? Or in your experience does the tracking customisation settings allow for a reasonable increase in keeper rates?

There is one thing I can answer (CD will answer the rest) but I love the battery grip. I have it on all my DSLRs.

It has struck me that I’ve never plugged either my DSLR or lens in to anything for a firmware update. I was just reading about the Tamron firmware updates.  I’m not even sure  my lens doesn’t require an AFMA adjustment (which my body doesn’t have), but it seems OK for stationary subjects.

I’m reluctant to get a Canon DSLR body given they are stopping production or development now. However, an 80d, 90d, should work well for at least another few years before they break.

My T7i has scene modes and all sorts of beginner items on it, none of which I’ve ever used, nor ever will. The 7dii is just a bit too expensive for its age I feel, can’t justify 800pounds used. Not sure how to proceed! 80d is looking most likely.

It would be great to have som experience of someone who moved from a t7i or 77d to an 80d regarding autofocus performance?

I briefly considered selling up for a Fuji 100-400, but i don’t feel the out of focus parts on images look aesthetically pleasing on that lens for my taste.

Ad12 wrote:

It has struck me that I’ve never plugged either my DSLR or lens in to anything for a firmware update. I was just reading about the Tamron firmware updates. I’m not even sure my lens doesn’t require an AFMA adjustment (which my body doesn’t have), but it seems OK for stationary subjects.

I’m reluctant to get a Canon DSLR body given they are stopping production or development now. However, an 80d, 90d, should work well for at least another few years before they break.

This is exactly why I’m not buying anything else for now (including budget...). I think all our EF lenses will be obsolete in a few years. And not only that, cameras will get a lot more intelligent with more in-camera intelligent processing.

Just to give you an example: my 7D has always been noisy at ISO 1600 and over. With software I can now get very nice pictures at ISO 6400 just by processing my files through “intelligent” software. I would have never guessed that 3-4 years ago. Actually, even last year I didn’t know that.

My T7i has scene modes and all sorts of beginner items on it, none of which I’ve ever used, nor ever will. The 7dii is just a bit too expensive for its age I feel, can’t justify 800pounds used. Not sure how to proceed! 80d is looking most likely.

It would be great to have som experience of someone who moved from a t7i or 77d to an 80d regarding autofocus performance?

I briefly considered selling up for a Fuji 100-400, but i don’t feel the out of focus parts on images look aesthetically pleasing on that lens for my taste.

I’ve been having a look at the 80d in more details. It seems to have many additional useful features for my use case. For example, i discovered it has a silent shutter option, which YouTube shows is not silent, but is certainly a lot quieter!  Recently a small bird was a bit off put by my shutter sound, that’s useful. Although i do note it mainly for stationary subjects as its only 4 FPS.

Bigger VF, manual controls, more FPS, bigger battery, silent shutter, AFMA capability, autofocus customisation settings, min shutter speed. Although maybe its not much of An upgrade and If i want to shoot BiF routinely i should bite the bullet and get a used 7dii.  It’s just a lot of money for a camera so old that will Almost certainly never be replaced on the same mount in the future.

Took a lookt at your photos, great pictures

Puffins and other small birds in flight that sometimes is really hard to get close to are probably hardest scenerio to shoot so even a higher-end sports camera would not be a bulletproof solution

been shooting puffins and they always have give me trouble when in flight because they are very unpredictable, if you are far enough you might wanna set MF to inifinity and just fire in manual focus, or pre-adjust to the zone where birds patch might be in

SergioThor wrote:

Took a lookt at your photos, great pictures

Puffins and other small birds in flight that sometimes is really hard to get close to are probably hardest scenerio to shoot so even a higher-end sports camera would not be a bulletproof solution

been shooting puffins and they always have give me trouble when in flight because they are very unpredictable, if you are far enough you might wanna set MF to inifinity and just fire in manual focus, or pre-adjust to the zone where birds patch might be in

Thank you. Ive been reading quite a bit today about the AF settings of the 7dii and 80d. The 7dii seems best for that, but an older sensor and very large.

The 80d seems to have lots of customisable options, which according to some YouTube videos and old posts from DPR, do allow a better hit rate to be achieved with a tweak. On my camera i cannot make any adjustments at all. For example, I saw the 80d has about 20 options in the AF settings. My Camera has no setting for this.

I like the idea of setting the 1st and 2nd shot priority between speed and focus. Some of the settings look useful.

Does anyone know whether tweaking the 80d settings can lead to a significant increase in keepers? My XT30 while small has these custom AF settings on it, its a shame Canon didn’t put any on my camera.

Ad12 wrote:

SergioThor wrote:

Took a lookt at your photos, great pictures

Puffins and other small birds in flight that sometimes is really hard to get close to are probably hardest scenerio to shoot so even a higher-end sports camera would not be a bulletproof solution

been shooting puffins and they always have give me trouble when in flight because they are very unpredictable, if you are far enough you might wanna set MF to inifinity and just fire in manual focus, or pre-adjust to the zone where birds patch might be in

Thank you. Ive been reading quite a bit today about the AF settings of the 7dii and 80d. The 7dii seems best for that, but an older sensor and very large.

The 80d seems to have lots of customisable options, which according to some YouTube videos and old posts from DPR, do allow a better hit rate to be achieved with a tweak. On my camera i cannot make any adjustments at all. For example, I saw the 80d has about 20 options in the AF settings. My Camera has no setting for this.

I like the idea of setting the 1st and 2nd shot priority between speed and focus. Some of the settings look useful.

Does anyone know whether tweaking the 80d settings can lead to a significant increase in keepers? My XT30 while small has these custom AF settings on it, its a shame Canon didn’t put any on my camera.

You've exhausted me. At the end of the day even the pros can't guarantee shots. They lug around several cameras and lenses and waste shots and try this camera and then that one. They say... this is the best, and then a year later, it's nope this has the same problem

The answer is to get out and SHOOT AND KEEP SHOOTING. Keep notes.... Post to Flickr and turn on the EXIF info so you can review your settings.. Spend a lot of time THINKING about your settings in EXIF.

Here are a few shots of pintails in flight.. At my Flickr site you can also search the BIF folder.. Please do!!!!!!!

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=37432113%40N08&view_all=1&text=pintail

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdmazoff/albums/72157696009809041

I saw this on lenstips. Something I’ve not used as the the foreground doesn’t seem to to interfere for me, but if it speeds up the acquisition that could be useful.

”still remember that the lens provides you also with a focus limiter ranging from 7 meters to infinity. If you switch it on you can shorten the focusing time to about 0.3 of a second. You can also customize the value of focus range – it’s enough you attach the lens to the TAP Console.”

Has anyone used and noticed the benefit of this feature?