Tough Time Focusing

[crayfish13]

Ok my problem is when shooting skateboarding sometimes I will miss the focus and the picture will be vurtually useless. Most of the time this happens because the person i'm photographing only comes into the picture once they are about to takeoff or already in the air. Ok a question should I be using Al Focus or AI servo? At the moment i've tried both an most of the I do get the proper focus but I is very frustrating when I don't. i hope someone can help me fix the problem.

Thanks Jamie

[psurrette]

Jamie, you should be panning with the rider in your frame at all times, using AI Servo the focus will keep up and shoot when the action hits it's peak. Shooting jumps, get the action at the highest, if the rider is grinding, try to get the shot 2/3 of the way on the rail or whatever is being used for peak action.
Hope this helps,
Pete

[crayfish13]

Thanks for the advice

[JohnJ80]

Sometimes this is best done with manual focus.

Set your camera to AI Servo, center focusing point ONLY. Switch your camera in the configurations so that teh * buttons runs the AF and the shutter button sets exposure.

Keep the * button depressed, keep the center focus point dead on the subject, the AF system should track this and keep it in focus. When they get to where you want to shoot depress the shutter button (which also sets the exposure).

In order to shoot moving subjects and track them as the move (keeping the focus going) you need to have a lens that is capable of focusing that fast. If the lens is not a USM lens, you are going to have a very hard time doing that since the non USM motors are typically not fast enough. If so, then you need to go back to the way we used to do this (with great success, I might add) using manual focus.

Even some USM lenses are slower than others. For example, my 300mm f/4L is so fast, I can continuously track a soccer player across the field and handily beats my other lenses in AF (especially the zooms).

J.