AF Point, Where's yours?

I shoot with a 50D and use the center point only when shooting sports. I shoot football, the cheerleaders too. Some soccer, wrestling, baseball, you get the point.

So my question to the sport shooter is just this, are you using the center point? Or are you letting the camera find focus by having all the points activated?

I manually choose which point I want to use based on the shot I'm trying to capture.

Gatorboy wrote in post #10493725
I manually choose which point I want to use based on the shot I'm trying to capture.

Yeah, +1 to this.

CliffordPhotography wrote in post #10493469
So my question to the sport shooter is just this, are you using the center point? Or are you letting the camera find focus by having all the points activated?

That's not much of a choice. Sticking to centre point is a big waste of a lot of the frame when shooting sportsmen. With the centre point on the face, almost half the frame is lost above them.

Letting the camera choose the AF point is just plain wrong. It doesn't know what the subject is and is going to focus on the wrong thing more often than not.

The option you didn't give is to manually choose the best AF point yourself, which is what I do. With a player for example, I would hold the camera in portrait orientation with the AF point at the top of the frame on the face (or one of those just underneath it, on the left or right) so that the head is nearer to the top of the frame than with centre point. If I am shooting in landscape orientation I may well be using top centre, or any on the upper half of the frame, or the ones at the ends or well, any which are where the subject is in the frame.

It only takes a fraction of a second to tap the button and joystick to pick any point, so I make full use of them. That's why you get so many.

Gatorboy wrote in post #10493725
I manually choose which point I want to use based on the shot I'm trying to capture.

+2....

i use trhe center one as well

Piper I see where your coming from.

I guess I should have added that I do that also. But the majority of the time Im on the center point. Football for example, at F8 if the body is in focus the face will be too. (Im tracking the body) And Im going for an overall focus not just the face. I totally understand what your saying though, as I find myself at times manually switching back and forth, for orientation purposes, and frame use.

If you are shooting at F8 then it does not matter.

CliffordPhotography wrote in post #10494273
Piper I see where your coming from.

I guess I should have added that I do that also. But the majority of the time Im on the center point. Football for example, at F8 if the body is in focus the face will be too. (Im tracking the body) And Im going for an overall focus not just the face. I totally understand what your saying though, as I find myself at times manually switching back and forth, for orientation purposes, and frame use.

Yeah, that's fair enough. I tend to shoot a lot wider than f8 to lift the subject from the background, so my DoF is a lot shallower and focusing more critical. Tracking the body can cause the face to be slightly soft at the apertures I use.

This is one of the problems of asking how people use one particular aspect of the camera (in this case AF points). How you use it generally depends on other aspects and so what works for one person isn't necessarily right for somebody else who has something else set differently (aperture in this instance). Setting up a camera is like a house of cards with each setting based on how other settings have been chosen.

Gatorboy wrote in post #10493725
I manually choose which point I want to use based on the shot I'm trying to capture.

me 2

Most of the time it's the central one. I take a lot of shots where there's movement. I usually can't predict on which side I want to place my subject because I can't predict which side they'll be coming from (e.g. terns feeding the chicks.) On the other hand, when I was doing a jousting shoot, I picked one of the side points and placed it on one of the knights because I needed to get the other one in the frame. If I didn't do that, the camera would focus on somebody in the audience between the knights.

Center for me

On some bodies, the center point will activate more sensitive AF sensors when used with f/2.8 or faster lenses. I have found this to be valuable in some situations. In my experience, even at 200mm f/2.8 the DOF is usually adequate to use the center AF point. Although there are other situations where I know the AF point is always going to be in one location (ie. top, center), then I will pick that point and leave it there, especially if I'm shooting with an f/4 lens and can't take advantage of the additional center point sensitivity anyways.

My normal shooting is done at F4, was 2.8 for indoor sports. But if I go from shooting Av to Tv, then Ive seen the F stop go up considerably.

For bike/running races I use the top point in portrait. It makes sure I get a tight shot.

sandpiper wrote in post #10493836
Yeah, +1 to this.


That's not much of a choice. Sticking to centre point is a big waste of a lot of the frame when shooting sportsmen. With the centre point on the face, almost half the frame is lost above them.

Letting the camera choose the AF point is just plain wrong. It doesn't know what the subject is and is going to focus on the wrong thing more often than not.

The option you didn't give is to manually choose the best AF point yourself, which is what I do. With a player for example, I would hold the camera in portrait orientation with the AF point at the top of the frame on the face (or one of those just underneath it, on the left or right) so that the head is nearer to the top of the frame than with centre point. If I am shooting in landscape orientation I may well be using top centre, or any on the upper half of the frame, or the ones at the ends or well, any which are where the subject is in the frame.

It only takes a fraction of a second to tap the button and joystick to pick any point, so I make full use of them. That's why you get so many.

The 7D (and I'm sure others) let you program the focus point to auto switch depending on the orientation of the camera. It comes in handy shooting sports.