High Speed/Action Front Focus

[Gaetz]

I took these photos last year and am going back in a few weeks and want to improve upon my pictures and make them better.

I have a 7D with a 70-200 2.8 lens. It was very challenging to shoot the kids while tubing because of the boat and the subjects bouncing all over the place. I did notice a great deal of the photos being front focused.











Any ideas on how to keep the focus off the rope and front of the tube? Or ideas on how to improve these in general?

Regards,

TRH

 

[jhal]

Use AI servo, center point AF with surround expansion points active ( I think you can do that on the 7D). High Tv, 1/4000 and stop down a bit 3.5/4.0. Have you tried to MA your lens?

One simple test is to put the cam/lens on a tripod put 3 batteries at 45 degrees spaced 3 cm apart, focus in the middle battery and see which one of the is sharp. Lens at 2.8.This is a crude and quick test to check for FF or BF

John

I took these photos last year and am going back in a few weeks and want to improve upon my pictures and make them better.

I have a 7D with a 70-200 2.8 lens. It was very challenging to shoot the kids while tubing because of the boat and the subjects bouncing all over the place. I did notice a great deal of the photos being front focused.

Any ideas on how to keep the focus off the rope and front of the tube? Or ideas on how to improve these in general?

Regards,

TRH

 

[Gaetz]

John-

Thanks for helping. I will try the steps you recommend.

I did shoot these in AI and at 1/6400 but only at 2.8. I'll stop-down some and try that too.

TRH

 

[digographer]

I was shooting my buddies wake-boarding last year too. I also discovered how hard it was to catch the focus, especially given that water bubbles and drops are all around the target and they confuse the focus meter.

What I figured out was that the rope that pulls the wake-boarder happens to be of a constant length. In fact, professional ropes are specially designed to not stretch at all. Therefore, the distance from the boat to the wake-boarder is mostly constant, at least when he's strictly behind the boat (and it also often happens to be the top, most picturesque point of his flight). So, I caught the focus once, set my lens to the manual focus, and then used the same distance setting. Obviously, it's hard to make a sharp F/2.8 shot using this approach, but I would say it mostly worked at slower F settings.

Also, I found auto-exposure of any kind to be quite useless in this setting: I couldn't catch the right point of my target to measure the exposure given how shaky it was, and how significant the difference between the water's sky's and object's luminosities are. So, I made a few test shots and kept manual exposure.

Since you don't need to focus and AE-meter, you can make frequent shots and just hope some of them would turn out to be good. Obviously, not the most creative approach, but I couldn't do better.

Also, it was a good place to use a polarizer.

Good luck!

 

[Dinsy]

Nice shots.

Re "Any ideas on how to keep the focus off the rope and front of the tube?":

I've got a 60D, and I pre-focus a lot, ie manually focus on a point a specific distance from the camera. That might be a viable option when you've got an inflatable a set distance behind the boat you're on.

 

[riknash]

Great suggestion since the rope only stretches a tiny amount. The camera can be easily fooled by all the water spots in the air, so it makes perfect sense to turn off the automation which is getting fooled. If you are going to zoom with the 70-200, you will need to refocus at the focal distance you have zoomed to, since the lens does not keep focus when zooming.

So likely you can use AF to get the focus, and then switch it back off to shoot at that focal length.

Nice shots.

Re "Any ideas on how to keep the focus off the rope and front of the tube?":

I've got a 60D, and I pre-focus a lot, ie manually focus on a point a specific distance from the camera. That might be a viable option when you've got an inflatable a set distance behind the boat you're on.

 

[Severian The Lame]

+1 on most of your suggestions

I was shooting my buddies wake-boarding last year too. I also discovered how hard it was to catch the focus, especially given that water bubbles and drops are all around the target and they confuse the focus meter.

What I figured out was that the rope that pulls the wake-boarder happens to be of a constant length. In fact, professional ropes are specially designed to not stretch at all. Therefore, the distance from the boat to the wake-boarder is mostly constant, at least when he's strictly behind the boat (and it also often happens to be the top, most picturesque point of his flight). So, I caught the focus once, set my lens to the manual focus, and then used the same distance setting. Obviously, it's hard to make a sharp F/2.8 shot using this approach, but I would say it mostly worked at slower F settings.

This is a textbook example of the usefulness of removing the AF function from the shutter release button. Get in the 7D's menu and go to C. Fn IV-1, select the shutter button and set it to either "Metering start" or "AE lock". Once you do that, you don't have to mess around with the "AF -- MF" switch on any lens with full time manual focus. As other posters have mentioned, since the subject distance is more or less fixed once you have achieved proper focus for a particular focal length you don't need to refocus between shots. (But remember you may have to refocus to compensate for any of your significant position changes on the boat, especially when shooting wide open at 200mm -- thus the virtue of stopping down and upping the ISO. And don't forget to refocus as you zoom in -- it's less important when you zoom out to a shorter length with this lens or any that is roughly parfocal.)

Also, I found auto-exposure of any kind to be quite useless in this setting: I couldn't catch the right point of my target to measure the exposure given how shaky it was, and how significant the difference between the water's sky's and object's luminosities are. So, I made a few test shots and kept manual exposure.

Yep. That's why you switch to manual and spot-meter off of someone's skin and adjust the exposure based on skin color and how light or dark looks natural to you. It's far more important to get good facial features and expressions than to be concerned with whether or not the sky or sea spray is blown out. Of course you'd prefer that nothing was blown, but ...

Since you don't need to focus and AE-meter, you can make frequent shots and just hope some of them would turn out to be good. Obviously, not the most creative approach, but I couldn't do better.

8 FPS is your friend.

Also, it was a good place to use a polarizer.

Good luck!

 

[guy schlacter]

one more suggestion... Move the single focus point up in the frame so you lower the change of it being on the front of the tube our string.
You have some great shots, hopefully a couple are on your wall.
Guy

 

[Keith Reeder]

I did notice a great deal of the photos being front focused.

What you're seeing is not front focusing - that phrase has a very specific meaning, and it's clearly not what is happening here.

You are simply experiencing the challenge of accurate AF point placement - a very different issue, and nothing to do with "front focusing".

 

[Gary S]

You've got some nice looking shots there.

The replies here brought up some good points and some good suggestions.

I'll add a point about Servo focus that may help others who read the thread. Servo focus is a predictive distance focus mode which makes calculations based on previous focus positions.

Obviously that's going to work best when a subject's distance is changing in a continuous and somewhat consistent manner. Servo focus is great for cars coming down the race track, runners, bicycles, birds flying toward you, etc.

From the boat, distance to the tube riders is not changing that much and with water flying around the camera is very likely to show erratic focus in Servo mode.

Many camera users tend to use Servo focus for "anything that moves". I shoot a lot of sports and use One Shot mode just as much as Servo. It just depends on how the subject's distance is changing relative to my position. I think that's an important key that people tend to overlook.

 

[The Unknown Photographer]

I would suggest you use move your focus to the * button, when starting out focus on the subject then continue shooting without re-focusing. (The distance will not change since the rope is constant). These samples were taken quite a few years back at the nationals. Another item to note is to shoot wide and crop later, if you constantly zoom (Assuming a zoom lens) you could cause misfocus if the lens is not par-focal...Also if you have lots of light shoot stopped down this will also give you a wide DOF ...

 

[Bernard D]

!? Front focus !?

I can't see that at the size of the images and the subjects.

First, why would you shoot at f/2.8 ? Why did you pick that aperture ?

Some have suggested shutter priority, I whould suggest aperture priority, I would set my aperture at f/8, a good ISO, at least 1600, and you would see pictures similar to the other poster who has posted pictures sample, you'll notice none of his shots were shot at an aperture of f/2.8.

I would shoot an aperture of f/2.8 when I want shallow DOF, or when the light is a challenge, but in this case, the light was not a challenge.

Have fun

Bernard

--

I measure my success in life not by my awards, but by the amount of smiles, hugs and kisses I get from my family on a daily basis !

 

[mailman88]

...What! f2.8 and 1/6400...why? How about starting at f/8 and 1/1600

 

[Gaetz]

Well, I guess I chose f2.8 and 6400 because I thought that would give me the best action. I've never shot anything like that before and it obviously was the wrong choice. It looked good in the viewfinder, so I went with it. That was over a year ago and I've learned a lot since then. It's one of those moments where you say, "what was I thinking?".

I appreciate all your advice and hopefully this years' trip will generate some more keepers.

TRH

 

[Gaetz]

OK, symantics! Thanks for the clarification, but do you have any advice?

 

[Gaetz]

Now that's what I'm talking about. Very awesome and very inspiring!!!!

Good Job Unknown

 

[The Unknown Photographer]

One other thing.... If possible use Full Manual, AV and TV can screw up some subjects have darker suits and some lighter. Just make sure the face is exposed properly... Enjoy and post some shots when you get back out on the water...

 

[goanna670956]

Yes but have you set the focus point to a single point so the you can choose precisely where the AF focuses.

Also you may need to Micro adjust AF in the Camera for that lense.

I had to for a 100-400 L and it works a treat.