GVP 8, 9 and 10 - and focus plan

From http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/2010/04/gvp-8-9-and-10-and-focus-plan.html



I've been on flickr now for so long I've been shooting and posting with it mind. Too much on my mind.

This Vertical project is one attempt to break that habit. Explorer doesn't "like" vertical shots, and I don't as much, and laptops, contacts, screens, all favor horizontal images.

Whatever.

Another thing I have gotten in to the habit of it posting one a day mostly. So tonight I decided to post 3 shots, all vertical.

Yesterday it was vertical video.

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On a more technical note, I learned something about hand holding my 200-400mm.

My main pet peeve with the 200-400mm f/4 lens is that the manual override of focus cannot be turned off. Gripping the lens near the front very very often caused the focus ring to turn and then that causes the camera to stop trying to focus.

I thought about using some gaffer tape to lock down that ring. But tape on that lens, just didn't seem like the right thing to do. This weekend I had the idea to slide my neopreme camo back a bit to cover the edge of the focusing ring, to prevent it from moving at all. It seemed to work!

Two other things I've changed up to improve my focus tracking of moving birds is to use the focus button on the back of the camera. The general way is to focus with the shutter button or back button on a moving subject and then just keep the rear-focus button depressed all the time. Take shots, wait, continue to track, take more shots - doing it this way keeps the camera working on focus the entire time because the focus button on the back of the camera is still pressed...

The other thing I finally did and think I may just stick to is I've turned OFF the focus limiter. I've gotten better at getting close to birds, or hiding better, and I don't want to miss those closer chances. With the limiter on I've had the occasional very close fly-by not be shootable because the lens wasn't allowed to focus so close.

The focus limit trade off - allow the lens to focus faster for a far away subject and miss close shots. OR take far away shots after a little lag / hunting, but NOT being locked out of the chance to focus close - which on the 200-400mm is about 6 feet (minimum).

The other day I was out shooting in two spots and had an eagle (both times) spot me late and make a hard turn and bank away. I was hiding and dressed in some camo, but not in a blind at the time.

-50-

Original content posted at http://natureandwildlifephotography.blogspot.com/

Nikographer.com / Jon Read more On "GVP 8, 9 and 10 - and focus plan"!

GVP 8, 9 and 10 - and focus plan

Focusing on Focus - In Flight Bird Photography

I posted something on this yesterday on flickr...


Here's some of what I wrote:

I was chatting with Warren and was complaining about focusing on birds when they are flying right at me, and it came to me, a way to try to over come it. In this situation, with my camera set (a1 and a2) to shoot only when the image is IN FOCUS very often the camera won't take the photo(s), and frustration ensues. In the past I've tried to use the focus lock (/exposure lock) button, but with a subject getting closer the focus goes off almost right away ( it is way easier when a bird is just flying by you, not at you!!!). Anyway, I realized using the 200-400mm's manual focus over-ride was the way to go. I tried it a few times, and it worked! It will take some learning and etc, and lots of not perfect images, but it will work. If the subject is getting closer then the focus ring has to be turned counter-clockwise.

I've had the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 lens now for about 9 months and had never tried the manual focus over-ride feature on a moving bird. The way I thought about it was that a nearly 2 thousand dollar camera (D300) and a 5 thousand dollar lens (at f/4) should be able to get good focus on just about anything. So I never tried it.

A handful of times I would try to use the focus lock button to let the camera shoot but as you can see from these 2 examples below it wasn't even worth it.





Early on when I got my D200 and again with my D300 I changed the default setting for focus behavior so that it requires focus to let me take the shot. On the D300 this is setting A1 and A2. They call the settings Release Priority and Focus Priority. With release priority it will start taking shots right away and work on adjusting focus too, but won't restrict shooting. In Focus Priority the camera requires gaining focus BEFORE the camera will take the shot.

Normally when a bird is flying by the camera can do a good job on focusing and shooting. The worst is when the bird is flying right at the camera. The camera wants to get the image in focus and will be constantly readjusting focus, and thus very often never shooting an image.

I've tried a number of different focus settings, like single sensor (the center one) and center plus group assist (D300 middle setting for rear focus selector), and always AF-C (continuous focus mode) for moving subjects.




So I tried this new way to shoot. I'd use the autofocus of the camera and then when it got close to right I'd start adjusting the focus manually. I've seen the above bird behavior before but I don't think I ever got a decent shot of it. The bird is approaching its nest, and tucked in its wings a bit, accelerating, and flying somewhat towards the camera. I'm pretty happy with the results of just an hour trying this new way to shoot.

I think this is the best example I have from last weekend of the technique and resulting images. Here's a small sized version without any cropping:


And here's a 100% crop of the center without processing as well:


This is the final version, cropped and processed fully (levels, shadow recovery, sharpening, etc):


-Jon
Read more On "Focusing on Focus - In Flight Bird Photography"!

Focusing on Focus - In Flight Bird Photography