Have I outgrown my 300D already???

[intechpcx]

Hey guys, I need some opinions here. I'm trying to determine if I'm already outgrowing my 300D (It's not even 5 months old yet) or if I still haven't grown into it. Here's the deal.

Two co-workers and I went out on lunch today to a local park just to enjoy the weather and shoot some pics. Two of us have 300D's while the third just recently upgraded from the dReb to a 20D. While shooting, I took about 12 shots of a seagull that was flying around and diving in at us. To get the shots, I switched to the Sports basic mode (from Av mode) to enable the AI Servo.

After we got back and I unloaded the pics the results were most underwhelming. I did 3, 4-shot bursts. One set with nothing but the sky in the background (solid blue, no clouds), one with trees in the background and one with the pond and surrounding areas in the backgroud. Of the three sets, the bird is only in focus on the sky shots. In the other two I can see that the camera focused on the trees and lake rather than the bird even though the bird is pretty well centered in the frame.

Now, the reason I worry that I maybe outgrowing the camera is I feel that the camera picking the focus point is what threw it off. The sports mode (I believe) uses the auto focus point selection. I have a feeling if I could have set the camera to use only the center point the pics would have turned out. This would require the ability to use AI Servo in the creative modes (Av in my case). As far as I know, the only way to get this would be to move up to the 20D (since as far as I've seen the AI Servo hasn't been successfully hacked in either wasia or undutchables firmware yet).

So I'd like to hear your thoughts. Is it really the camera or is my technique potentially flawed? I'm still pretty amateur so I'm sure either is possible. I'm almost hoping you guys will tell me that I just have to hone my skills more as I've already put over $2,000 into this hobby in the last 4 months and spending another 1,600 on a new body would give my better half heart palpatations. If you want to see the pictures, I'll get them on the web tonight after I get home and I'll post the link here. However if you have any thoughts in the meantime, I'd like to hear them.

I really would appreciate any and all opinions, comments, etc. that you folks would be willing to share. Thanks in advance!!

[DocFrankenstein]

I have pretty much the same setup as you... except I skipped the 70-300...

Drebel pretty much sucks at focusing on moving subjects. The question is: how often do you shoot moving stuff?

Let's say you get 50 shots of birds... That would mean every picture cost you 40 bucks each.

[Hellashot]

Do you have the hacked firmware? In it there's a custom function to set your type of autofocus in anymode, not just in sports. So you can have continuous autofocus in P or Av etc. The different firmware may be all you need.

[intechpcx]

Hellashot, that sounds like it might be the answer. All I had seen was that the AI Servo hadn't been successfully unlocked. However if I can set the focus point in the Sports Basic mode that would give me what I need. I might have to look into it more deeply.

Doc F, you do bring up a good point, I don't shoot moving objects all that often. I think I've got to get to a point where I can make money off my pics before I can justify spending the money on a 20D or better. In the meantime, maybe just focus on what I can do with the camera (if the camera is the problem and not the shutter button actuator)

[tim]

A 20D might make your life a little easier, but with that hack you should be fine with the 300D.

[CGrindahl]

You might want to check out this photo taken with the DR set at sports mode. The main difference is that I was shooting with the 70-200 f4L. No problem with sharpness here. I was shooting fast at seagulls circling about a young girl throwing bread, resting my arm on the car window.

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/North_America/United_States/photo117078.htm

[Persian-Rice]

The lens also has a great effect on focusing. I would also agree that hacked firmware will be beneficial, but throw on a lens known for strong focusing and you will notice a big improvement. I will go as far as saying that my 10D focuses almost as accuratly and fast when I have my 70-200 on it compared to my 1D with the Tamron 28-75. For action there is a differnce, but under normal documentary photography I have noticed that they are comparable.

Other then your Sigma, your other lenses arent very fast focusers, even the Sigma isnt at the top of the food chain. Im not saying that you should go buy an L USM, but it is just another thing to consider.

[intechpcx]

Thank you all for the replies, you've helped level my head emmensely. After looking at the pictures some more, I've found it wasn't as bad off as it seemed. In 3 of the 8 that are out of focus, the camera didn't get a good focus on anything, this is probably my shooting skills and maybe a little bit of the dReb having some focus trouble. 1 of the 8 actually looks like it was probably in focus but the bright white bird was washed out by the sun making appear as though it was out of focus. The last four (all of the bird flying in front of trees) are legitmate cases where the camera focused on the wrong thing. My guess is that it probably is a result of the amount of contrast between the dark branches of the trees against the sky being greater than that of the white bird against the blue sky.

I've definitely got some things to learn. I may have hit on some limitations of my equipment, specifically the body, but thanks to you I come to realize that it probably isn't enough of an issue (at least not yet) to send me down the path of a new camera. I will however be looking into getting the hack. Most accounts I've seen seem to indicate that it is fairly fail safe since in the worst case scenario you just restore the previous firmware. That should really tide me over for some time to come yet. Thanks again for sharing your opinions.

[SkipD]

I don't know why, but it seems that folks these days don't understand that you can focus manually too. All the work I did In the "olden days", including high-speed automobile racing, required manual focussing - autofocus didn't exist. It didn't take a heck of a lot to do the focussing manually for moving subjects. I would generally pre-set the lens focus to the middle-point of the subject area and would just tweak it this way or that depending on the movement of the subject I wanted to capture on film.

I realise that some of today's lenses (such as the 300D kit lens) are not well designed for manual focussing. You have to turn the front rim of the lens, and it doesn't have a good feel to it. However, there are a lot of lenses available with good manual focus rings. Having lenses with this feature and getting a little practise in might just provide one the ability to capture things that the camera's programming cannot do well.

[Phil V]

Firstly you're advanced enought to realise that you need to pick a focus point. Despite what the marketing men say, this means you need to leave the PIC zones - FOREVER.

Congratulations, now to deal with making the camera focus on moving objects;
The hack can't force AI focus.
If you follow an object for plenty of time before you take the picture, AI servo mode will start to track it, it works.
Trap focussing (like in the old days)
Manual focussing (hard but rewarding)

( I tried to include an image but failed)