Question for Sports Shooters on Focus Points

[Hydro]

I have been using the center focus point, but have had some softness/OOF problems on some shots while attempting to track fast action. I have been trying to keep the center point on the players upper body because it's the biggest target. Unfortunately, my daughter's soccer team wears either all black or all white jerseys. Previous threads have alerted me to the focus problems that may be encountered in areas lacking in contrast.

So my question is; when you experienced sports shooters encounter this, do you expand the focus points a bit?The team has not had any games the last couple of weeks, so I haven't been able to experiment yet, but I wanted to go armed with more input at the next match.

Also was curious how many OOF shots (percentage-wise) you folks experience during a "typical" soccer match? I tend to shoot pretty selectively----taking maybe 25 shots---of which maybe 7 are tossers because of focus problems.

RICK

[madplower4]

Hydro, I am having the same problem also at soccer. I have a 300D and don't have ai-servo capabilities. I also have a slower lens, but some of my shots will focus in on the background etc. Even the one's in which a player is in focus appear soft, and I am using a high ap speed. I have been using center point and largest apperature in hopes of creating shallow dof. Baseball shots are fine, but trying to stay on track with soccer is tough. I'm looking forward to hearing what the big dog's have regarding advice!

[EricKonieczny]

Out of over 3000 shots I took last weekend at a music festival, I kept 600, which could still be edited down to 200 if I really tried.

The sports and festival setting is very similar, outside shooting, people moving fast, contrasty clothing, etc.

It also depends on what you will be doing with the images, with they be downsized for the web, or will they be printed?

I kept more shots because I needed to doucment the festivities on 2 websites, but if I was to print I would have maybe 50 shots I wanted to print.

[Croasdail]

Interesting ratios - would love to see what other peoples results are... but that would a subject for another thread.

[CyberDyneSystems]

In this case I would use the upper focus point above center on the face.

[KennyG]

If you are using AI Servo then your problem is not giving the AF time to settle. It takes around a second to be on focus. In two day's shooting this weekend with around 3,000 images I probably have no more than 10 OOF. Some of it is down to the 1 series being good at this type of thing, but in the main it is that I let the focus settle.

[gmen]

Kenny is correct that the AI Servo system on the 1 series bodies takes a moment or two to first acquire the subject and then the focusing algorithms kick-in to track the subject. This works incredibly well when the action is moving highly predictably - I shot 1500 or so cycling images yesterday and I had less than 60 that were OOF and some of those were 'experimental' pics where I was probably pushing the camera's systems to their limits.

To deal with your question about shooting football... the action moves far more erratically and the camera will not always have the optimum time to acquire the subject. As such the hit-rate goes down slightly. The important thing is minimising this difference. Using only the centre focus point will help with this. Also 'registering' a useful second focus point will help you switch on the fly from the centre point to an off-centre point to improve your compositional possibilities.

Another factor that clearly comes into play is the ambient lighting. I have had some success with using all the focus points (or expanding the AF area around the centre point) when the lighting is good and where backgrounds are uncluttered - but a single point approach is more often than not the way to go for football.

The final, and probably most important factor, is reading the game. If you are slightly ahead of the play this will give the camera time to acquire the subject before you start shooting and will improve your hit-rate significantly. In an average game, I'll shoot 400-500 pics and may have around 5-10% where the focus is not critically acceptable.

I'm sure that many of these basic principles apply when using a 20D as well as with the 1 series cameras.

--- Gavin

[Poster Of U]

With a 10D using center focal point, AV priority(4.0), ISO 100, good lighting, a 70-200 2.8 IS (w/IS Off) w/1.4 extender. I took about 350 jpegs at a Lacrosse match and about 50 OOF.

[22littlereasons]

Generally, I'll shoot 200 - 300 pictures per game. I shoot football, soccer, basketball and track & field. My OOF ratio would be about 10-15% outdoors, 20-25% indoors (usual crappy gymnasium lighting) Using a 10D, various lenses - all pretty much about the same.

[sf_1857]

Madplower4,

You actually DO have AI Servo with the 300D in Creative modes, according to another post on this forum.
I have a 300D. I just rec'd my Sigma 70-300 APO lens yesterday and in Tv mode, AI Servo kicked in when I changed focal lengths.

The AI Servo Tricks post:

Tricking AI servo, three ways I know... (works in ANY mode)
1. Achieve focus lock on a subject and then whilst keeping the shutter half depressed and the subject centered, move the lens focus ring - camera drops into AI servo and will stay there as long as the shutter is kept half depressed. (Only works with lenses that support full time manual focusing such as Canon USM and Sigma HSM lenses)

2. Achieve focus lock on a subject and whilst keeping the shutter half depressed use the lens zoom mechanism to zoom in slightly. Camera drops into AI servo and will stay there as long as the shutter is kept half depressed. Obviously only works with zoom lenses and doesn't work with parfocal lenses.

3. Achieve focus lock on a relatively close subject and then whilst keeping the subject centered, and the shutter button half depressed take a step forward. Camera drops into AI servo and will stay there as long as the shutter is kept half depressed.

All three methods take a little practice and some methods work better with some lenses than others. Fairly easy to do though.