Stupid question

Whilst at Rally Australia i kept running into a Friend of mine who is also an Accredited photographer (she is going to help me get my cams accreditation)
she has told me to practice using Manual Focus rather than the AF
does anybody here use Manual focus for motorsport shots ?
or do you use one of the Af modes.

all weekend i was using Ai Servo, AV @ 1/125 or 1/80 with my 70-200 f2.8
and custom function 4-1

I shoot a lot of motocross shots and if you are shooting the riders in the air moving fast and jumping I can only get clear shots if I shoot them in Manual Mode. I don't have a $1200 dollar Canon 70-200 lens I am using either but a friend of mine does and has a 20d and his are blurry also in AF.

Thats a really good question and I too am interested in what other do. I usually shoot in Ai Servo too (with 20D and 100-400L) but maybe 10% of the photos I get are sharp enough (by my standards) to use. Now, I am shooting NHRA Drag Racing, so I've only got 5 seconds or less to get my shots. I can't imagine getting too many shots if I went manual focus.

I think the idea of using manual focus for motorsports, is to lock the focus to a paticular area of the track. This way, when the vehicle goes through your target area, it will be already focused, and you won't have to wait fot autofocus to lock in.

Kinger wrote in post #2194108
I think the idea of using manual focus for motorsports, is to lock the focus to a paticular area of the track. This way, when the vehicle goes through your target area, it will be already focused, and you won't have to wait fot autofocus to lock in.

if u use * button to focus, pre focus at the point n wait for object to reach n then simply press the shutter...no need to wait for focus to lock also

justincase724 wrote in post #2193570
Thats a really good question and I too am interested in what other do. I usually shoot in Ai Servo too (with 20D and 100-400L) but maybe 10% of the photos I get are sharp enough (by my standards) to use. Now, I am shooting NHRA Drag Racing, so I've only got 5 seconds or less to get my shots. I can't imagine getting too many shots if I went manual focus.

I think this kind of thinking is typical of today's generation of photographers. I guess it is because today's photo equipment is generally so automated that new folks think they have to use the automation.

When I started in photography, there was no such thing as auto focus, and nobody complained about manually focussing for any sort of photography. When I was shooting road racing in Europe or drag racing in the States, I got nearly 100% of my shots in focus and that was always done with manual focussing.

The "trick" to manual focussing is to have the right equipment. Much of today's consumer-grade equipment is not really suitable for it.

Lenses such as the Canon EF-S 18-55 "kit lens" and the Canon 50mm f/1.8 do not even have conventional focussing rings. You have to rotate the filter thread ring. Manually focussing these lenses is a real pain at best. One needs to have a lens (or family of lenses) with a decent focussing ring on its barrel. The design of the manual focussing system has another variable that needs to be considered. That is how "fast" the focussing ring changes focus. If it is too "fast" - that is, a small movement of the focussing ring changes the focus too much - it will be difficult to use. If it is too "slow", you might have problems keeping up with moving targets.

Lenses with small maximum apertures ("slow" lenses) let less light through them and do not have a very short depth of field when wide open. These lenses are not the best for everyday manual focussing.

Some SLR cameras such as the old 300D have rather small and dim viewfinders. A camera with a larger and brighter viewfinder image will make manual focussing much easier to do. I don't have any problem with my 20D, using lenses with maximum apertures of f/2.8.

Some folks depend on accessory viewfinder screens with either a "split-screen" or other focussing aid in the center. I have always found these to be a negative factor for me and almost always use a plain focussing screen in my old cameras that used interchangeable focussing screens. I have no problem with the standard 20D focussing screen.

A technique that makes precision manual focussing easy (assuming you don't have the hardware limitations I wrote about above): While looking at the point that you want in focus, rock the focussing ring back and forth past the "in-focus" point. You can get a feel very quickly how far past focus you are going in each direction. While rocking the focussing ring back and forth, stop the motion when you are equally out-of-focus in each direction and then split the difference. You will be right in focus.

I, too, use the Custom Function 4 = 1 to allow me to choose when (if at all) autofocus does its thing rather than having the camera always trying to do its thing for me.

I do a fair bit of action photography - more often use autofocus. If autofocus can't / is not doing the job , then I will manual focus.
I'm new to AF cameras, have had 20D and 5D, with a decent lens the system is usually better than me (particularly with smaller viewfinder)
There are exceptions - for motocross I often pick one action spot at a time - a berm, jump, whatever. Even for a few seconds , I'll auto or manual focus on a chosen position. As I use the * button to focus , I can take multiple pics without focus changing.
Kitesurfing - don't know if you have seen it. While a rider is surfing along at speed setting up for a jump , I'll try to keep the AI Servo tracking on the rider , but once they jump , I'll let go of the * button and keep the focus set on the last position. Often I'll make a small manual focus adjustment while the rider is in the air. In this case the rider will usually be very high in the frame, so nowhere near any focus point.
Different situations , different techniques.