Mark III Custom Setting Questions re: Flight Shots
Discussion
3 replies
Posted by Peter Conway on October 8, 2007 at 10:08 AM
I am curious as to what others have done to achieve the best results. Some specific settings I wonder about are:
Fn-II-2: High ISO noise reduction. Since I often shoot flight shots at ISO 800 I have this set at 1 or ON.
Fn-III-1: USM lens manual focus. I did not see any reason to change this and left it at 0.
Fn III-2: Tracking sensitivity I just moved this one step to the right of center for more sensitivity. I have no idea what works best here.
Fn-III -4 Tracking method. It would seem that setting 1 Continuous track should be best. Opinions?
Fn-iii-5 impossible focus. I set this to 1 so that it would not continue searching and get further out of focus. Other opinions?
FN III-8 AF expansion. I had been on 0 for disable. After reading about it I am going to try 1 (enable right/left assist points) Anyone have the best answer?
FN III-9 Selectable AF points. I set this at 1 but would not think this has any impact on flight shots.
Those are the Custom settings I have made. Anything I missed or should change?
Thanks in advance,
Peter
Posted by Wim Reyns on October 8, 2007 at 11:04 AM
Peter, I am still waiting till my camera arrives but, i would turn Fn-II-2 Off.
As far as i know it will slow down your burst rate if it is turned on. (or fill your buffer more rapidly) .
I would also suggest that you turn tracking sensitivity one step to the left instead of to the right. Since the sensitivity will be a bit lower your camera focus wont jump the instant the bird fly's of your focus point.
I'm sure someone else will jump in and give you some more detailed help.
Re: C.Fn.III-2 . I think canon used an unfortunate choice of terms. Rather than slow and fast, the tracking sensitivity should be low or high. This is my understanding: Faster means more sensitive and slower means less sensitive. If you set the slider to faster, it means that if the AF point moves from the bird to the background, the focus will shift to the background more quickly. If you set the slider to slower, the focus will stay with the bird a little longer before it shifts to the background, giving you a little more time to re-acquire the bird before you lose focus.
I for one, have a lot of trouble just keeping the focus point on the bird, let alone the bird's eye. I have set the C.Fn.III-2 slider to slow and I am experimenting with other custom functions. Eventually, I may change it, but that's my thinking for now.
Posted by Peter Conway on October 8, 2007 at 10:58 PM
Thanks for the tip on Fn III-2.
The reason I decided to try it the other way is that the problem I seem to have with the in-flight shots is a failure to get the initial focus. I can be on the bird for what seems like an eternity before it will finally focus on it. By then it is often too late. I have not had much of an issue with having the bird in focus and then losing it to the background. That would at least be understandable. I can have the bird in focus on a perch and then when it flies off the camera just seems to hesitate too long before it begins to focus on the moving object. I don't know a better way to describe it. I thought making it more sensitive might speed up aquisition of the target.
Discussion
3 repliesFn-II-2: High ISO noise reduction. Since I often shoot flight shots at ISO 800 I have this set at 1 or ON.
Fn-III-1: USM lens manual focus. I did not see any reason to change this and left it at 0.
Fn III-2: Tracking sensitivity I just moved this one step to the right of center for more sensitivity. I have no idea what works best here.
Fn-III -4 Tracking method. It would seem that setting 1 Continuous track should be best. Opinions?
Fn-iii-5 impossible focus. I set this to 1 so that it would not continue searching and get further out of focus. Other opinions?
FN III-8 AF expansion. I had been on 0 for disable. After reading about it I am going to try 1 (enable right/left assist points) Anyone have the best answer?
FN III-9 Selectable AF points. I set this at 1 but would not think this has any impact on flight shots.
Those are the Custom settings I have made. Anything I missed or should change?
Thanks in advance,
Peter
As far as i know it will slow down your burst rate if it is turned on. (or fill your buffer more rapidly) .
I would also suggest that you turn tracking sensitivity one step to the left instead of to the right. Since the sensitivity will be a bit lower your camera focus wont jump the instant the bird fly's of your focus point.
I'm sure someone else will jump in and give you some more detailed help.
Re: C.Fn.III-2 . I think canon used an unfortunate choice of terms. Rather than slow and fast, the tracking sensitivity should be low or high. This is my understanding: Faster means more sensitive and slower means less sensitive. If you set the slider to faster, it means that if the AF point moves from the bird to the background, the focus will shift to the background more quickly. If you set the slider to slower, the focus will stay with the bird a little longer before it shifts to the background, giving you a little more time to re-acquire the bird before you lose focus.
I for one, have a lot of trouble just keeping the focus point on the bird, let alone the bird's eye. I have set the C.Fn.III-2 slider to slow and I am experimenting with other custom functions. Eventually, I may change it, but that's my thinking for now.
The reason I decided to try it the other way is that the problem I seem to have with the in-flight shots is a failure to get the initial focus. I can be on the bird for what seems like an eternity before it will finally focus on it. By then it is often too late. I have not had much of an issue with having the bird in focus and then losing it to the background. That would at least be understandable. I can have the bird in focus on a perch and then when it flies off the camera just seems to hesitate too long before it begins to focus on the moving object. I don't know a better way to describe it. I thought making it more sensitive might speed up aquisition of the target.
Peter