Sports shooters: single or expanded AF points?

[stevelee]

Would facial recognition focusing make sense for some of these situations or is that mode incompatible with some other setting you need?

 

[Ian_of_glos]

Jack - thank you for your feedback.
So do you think that if I set AI Servo First Image Priority to Focus Priority then I would have a better success rate? At the moment it is set to Equal Priority because I am worried about there being too much of a delay between pressing the shutter release and the camera taking the first picture in the series. It is only a 5D mark 4 and not really a sports camera, so I understand that I have to make some allowances for that.

Unfortunately, I'm not even close to being an expert on this but I think the 1st 2nd priority issue may play into the overall performance of the AF in this case. I believe it was Grant Atkinson who delved into that topic and today with a bad headache I can't quite recall - maybe someone can help - I believe he had a series of videos and suggested not using cases at all rather just setting the 3 parameters that constitute the cases, via your personal menu. Seems only one parameter is of greatest importance.

What I can say with authority is that the AF system is not as fast as it needs to be to insure that when a AF point is over a subject, that subject is always going to be in focus.

That's a completely unrealistic expectation especially when using less sensitive points and lenses that may not be the fastest in their drive characteristic. If you think of it, a brain has to analyze some smudgy area and decide what part of it should be in focus taking into account the movement of the camera and the movement of the smudge and then snap the lens into focus at that distance, which probably by now has changed slightly, and also determine when to let the shutter go. Ooooh, quite a task!

Jack

Thank you for the tips.
The lens used in all my shots was a Canon 100-400 F4.5-5.6L ii. This lens is great for sports and I find it always focusses very quickly - in the examples above you will see that it focussed on the background and then back onto the player without noticeably reducing the number of shots per second.
Next time I will try using focus priority to see if that makes a difference. Normally I discard all my out of focus shots so I would rather put up with a slight delay than capture an image that I am unable to use. Focus priority might be exactly what I need.

 

[Ian_of_glos]

Would facial recognition focusing make sense for some of these situations or is that mode incompatible with some other setting you need?

Well I never use live view for sports. Live view might be fine for landscapes where you have plenty of time to compose the shot, but for sports you really need to use the viewfinder. Also the phase detect AF points are designed to focus very quickly, which is what you need for fast action.
As you will have seen from the examples I posted yesterday, you don't often focus on a player's face. More commonly the AF system will pick up the ball or the good contrast between a player's shirt and his arm. Quite often the AF point settles on the back of a player so in this situation facial recognition would be of no use.

 

[Viggo]

Would facial recognition focusing make sense for some of these situations or is that mode incompatible with some other setting you need?

Well I never use live view for sports. Live view might be fine for landscapes where you have plenty of time to compose the shot, but for sports you really need to use the viewfinder. Also the phase detect AF points are designed to focus very quickly, which is what you need for fast action.
As you will have seen from the examples I posted yesterday, you don't often focus on a player's face. More commonly the AF system will pick up the ball or the good contrast between a player's shirt and his arm. Quite often the A'F point settles on the back of a player so in this situation facial recognition would be of no use.

Face detection IS available with viewfinder focus on multiple Canon cameras.

And imo, it works very well quite often, but when it misses, it misses, and it will take a second to switch to a different AF-mode.