5D mkiii with canon 600mm f/4l is ii hard to fokus

[Morlin]

Hi.

I´m a beginner when it comes to use my Canon 600mm f/4l is ii. The purchase of that lens started my interest in bird photography lately. But I have one question/problem.

I have been taking photos of mammals earlier and they are pretty easy to hit with your "autofocus points". I normally use the center point and often nails the images perfectly even if the fellow deer for an example runs quick.

But when it comes to birds they are faster, not as easy to predict in flight and most of all smaller. They are often very hard to nail in a distance with just the center point so I would like to use more focusing points as the option where you have at least nine points or even more. But when it comes to tracking the birds in flight I find it very hard for the camera to follow the bird unless it´s just a clean sky above. If there are trees or anything else in the background the camera is having a hard time to following the bird in servo mode.

Is it the limitations of the autofokus in the Canon 5d mkiii that makes it almost impossible to use more than one focusing point or are there any adjustments that will be better for BIF? I have tried several of the different settings and also tried to optimize them myself but with no luck.

How do you do it? Any suggestions and advices to improve the tracking capabilities or is it that the focus is not good enough on that body? Maybe it´s the same with any camera that the subject needs to be covered completely with all selected points or else some of the points will find another thing to "lock up to" in the background?

Appreciate your help.

 

[cervantes]

Hi,

I created an extensive article for exacly that topic. You can see it on my website at http://www.focrates.com/articles/configuring_your_5d_mark_3_af_for_fast_action/configuring_your_5d_mark_3_af_for_fast_action.html.

My site is brand new and actually still in the testing phase and I wanted to announce it in a couple of days here on canonrumors (which I will still do).

Hope that helps.

Best wishes!

 

[Dylan777]

BIF is very challenging to shoot. I started to shoot BIF 3-4 months ago.

For BIF, I'm using case 6 with 61points AF in Ai servo, high speed:
1. Tracking Sens. @ -1
2. accel/dec @ 1 to 2, depending on bird size and flying speed
3. AF pt auto switching @ +1 to +2, depending on bird size and flying speed


Bird walking or moving around, case 2, Zone, Ai servo, high speed:
1. Tracking Sens. @ -1 to -2
2. accel/dec @ 0
3. AF pt auto switching @ 0 to -1, depending on bird size and movements

With 600mm, try to track BIF from far out. Hit rate will be higher. Don't hit that shutter too soon, buffer could be a problem. Wait for the bird to fill the screen, then fire that shutter Again, tuning the AF is the key.

Here is my BIF photos: http://dylannguyen.smugmug.com/Bird-In-Flight#!/

 

[mackguyver]

Don't feel bad, BIF photos are hard and it takes lots of practice, but even then it's often quite difficult. The longer the lens the harder it is and 600mm is pretty long. Here's a post I replied to about this a while back:

I've been meaning to ask for a while about birds in flight actually - as in, which AF scenario to use. I must admit, the 5D3's autofocus options have always rather baffled me - even though it gives examples, I've never known which is most appropriate for birds. I don't do much BIF work, as I'm mostly shooting small songbirds, and not the big owls/eagles that you guys have access to in North America (and other such places). But when I see, say, a duck, crow, or cormorant (i.e. a medium-sized bird) flying, and I try and focus on it, the camera almost never chooses the bird, choosing the sky instead (that being the much larger target). I'm hand holding, and so keeping the AF point on the bird is very hard, but using multiple points or a zone doesn't seem to help. Sorry if all this has been covered before, but I thought I'd ask here anyway

First of all, a caveat: shooting birds in flight is tough. Even the best gear and technique won't guarantee a good shot, but there are ways to increase your success. The best way to do this is to set up in a stationary location and wait for birds to fly over. It also helps to pre-focus at the distance you expert to acquire the target (BIF). In terms of AF settings, the 7D works best with Zone AF, and the 5DIII and 1D X works best with the the 61-pt auto-select, but it often picks the sky (as you say) if you don't get the BIF with the right initial AF point. The most reliable thing you can do is set it to 61-pt, AI Servo and use the AF Point selection to pick the center AF point. Case 1 seems to work well for me most BIFs, but I'll use Case 2 when there are trees in the way and Case 5 when shooting small birds like swifts. The key is getting the initial AF point on target, holding it until you can verify that it locked, following the target for a moment, and then pressing the shutter. With small distant birds and/or with birds in a gray sky, that can be really tough, but the sooner you are able to lock onto the BIF and start tracking it, the better. If it doesn't lock on, release the AF button and push it again. Sometimes I'll do that 2-3x before it will lock if the BIF is small/distant.

So to recap, set up in a place you expect to see BIFs, lock onto them as soon as you can, confirm focus lock/tracking, wait for key moment, then fire away.

The final key to BIF photos - practice, practice, practice.

And I'll leave you with this (after many years of practice) - here are two shots of BIF I took recently while focusing my 600mm lens (300 + 2x) on an owl. I had to grab my camera off the tripod and in the first instance, I did pretty well...

...but I totally flubbed the second shot of an osprey (with fish) that flew over me from the opposite direction: