I’m just curious about what techniques you guys use for focusing during ceremonies/receptions. I’ve have always used center spot focusing (focus and recompose) or a local focusing point because they allow me to tell the camera exactly what to focus on. They also allow me to compose the shot correctly in camera. Unfortunately these techniques cause me to miss shots at times because either A) the subject is moving too quickly to grab with the selected focusing point or B) the shot is soft due to focus and recomposing. Do any of you guys use AF wide and let the camera pick the focus point? If so how often does it focus on the correct subject ie: if the bride is walking down the aisle how likely is it to focus on her as opposed to uncle Bob in the corner. Also how do you handle composition…. do you just crop in post?
are you shooting canon or nikon?
I am in C mode all day every day no matter what.
That is servo for Nikon. I pick my point put it on my subject and use the back button focus to track them and then use the shutter button to shoot them.
My Nikon D3's work 99% of the time and if it does not it is mostly my fault... the servo mode is pretty perfect.
During receptions I still use servo. I not quite sure how the camera can focus when there is almost no light but if you are shooting with flashes and are at like f4-f4.5 you should be good to do even if you are a slightly off.
I rarely use the 3d focus on the nikon... it works but is kind of unpredictable in certain situations.
I shoot with a 5D Mark III - I mostly use single point with AF point expansion, choose whichever AF point necessary to frame the subject the way I want, and use back button focusing. I usually use one-shot mode, but for moving subjects (aisle walks, dancing, etc), I use AI Servo. And I have the DoF preview button programmed to be the quick One-Shot->AI Servo switch.
When I used a 5D Mark II, I usually used just the center AF point and one-shot mode - focused on the subject, recomposed the shot, and shoot. I found the outer AF points and Servo mode to be unreliable on the Mark II.
i focus manually during all day, in church i help my self by prefocus and travel with the couple.
dancing i usually do at fixed focus distance and then move my self or use AF-C to follow if there is at least some light
. I actually use a sony a850 and a sony a77.