Imagemaster wrote:
Are you saying the majority of Sports Photographers do not use AI Servo when shooting rugby, football, soccer, basketball, hockey, etc.?
These are all sports with predictable motion, so AI Servo is well suited for the task. Kids moving around at close range are not predictable motion, and there's where you have a problem. It's the same thing as trying to shoot a small dog that's running around all over the place.
When I use to shoot these sports, AI Servo was of course the best choice. I configured the buttons on the end of my 400mm 2.8 to switch between One shot and AI servo on my camera. That way, I could hold down the button and select One shot to pre focus ahead of the action, or not press them and be in AI servo to track the action.
Ben, judging by your post, I assume that you are not familiar with the 5D Mark III, right? There is a special AF custom function designed for that purpose, it is called Case 5. Just FYI.
Ben Horne wrote:
These are all sports with predictable motion, so AI Servo is well suited for the task.
You must be joking. I pointed out those particular sports because of their unpredictable motion.
Sports with predictable motion are ones like tennis, baseball, car racing, etc.
I can not think of a worse lens to use wide open for tracking kids running around, except the 85L. The 135L has some big bits of glass in it, it focuses relatively slowly and has extremely thin DOF.
Im not saying its impossible, just that it would take patience, experience and good technique.
Imagemaster wrote:
You must be joking. I pointed out those particular sports because of their unpredictable motion.
Sports with predictable motion are ones like tennis, baseball, car racing, etc.
I've spent many years shooting sports my friend. The only one of those I have not shot is rugby. They are all very predictable motion. Anyone running toward you,away from you, or parallel to you even at full speed is very predicable. What's NOT predicable is object that is very quickly changing course all the time.... such as a small dog or at times a child.
Tennis was very easy to shoot. I often shot it with my 300 from near the net. There wasn't a whole lot of motion to speak of other than swinging rackets. Baseball was an entirely different subject to shoot. I would often use One shot to pre focus ahead of the action, and simply anticipate what would happen based on the particulars players. I would double my odds by setting the pre-set focus distance on my 400 2.8 for the easy gimme shot, then aim the lens at a more difficult shot. For example, aim the lens at the shortstop if I think that's where the ball will go, but have second base logged into the memory of the lens. There were times where I would get a shot of the shortstop laid out for a quick grounder, then flash over to second base with the focus pre-set to get the tag.
AGeoJO wrote:
Ben, judging by your post, I assume that you are not familiar with the 5D Mark III, right? There is a special AF custom function designed for that purpose, it is called Case 5. Just FYI.
Sorry, I didn't realize we were discussing the 5DIII in particular. I was merely talking about what I use to do when I shot sports with my 1DII and 400 2.8. I sure with they put those custom lens buttons on the 70-200mm lens as well. They sure were handy!
You are right, we were not discussing the AF feature of the 5D Mark III and I didn't mean to criticize you either. What I meant is that Canon has made a significant progress in that camera and in the 1DX over what you used to do a few years back. Sorry! And maybe we need to go back on topic and try to help the OP out .
Ben Horne wrote:
I've spent many years shooting sports my friend. The only one of those I have not shot is rugby. They are all very predictable motion. Anyone running toward you,away from you, or parallel to you even at full speed is very predicable. What's NOT predicable is object that is very quickly changing course all the time.... such as a small dog or at times a child.
Well I guess you should have been a tackle or hockey defenseman, since you obviously would have been able to predict whether they would dodge right or left to get past you. And I am pretty sure the moves made by basketball players are always predictable.
Next you will be saying that a pro athlete can't change course quicker than a child.
morganb4 wrote:
I can not think of a worse lens to use wide open for tracking kids running around, except the 85L. The 135L has some big bits of glass in it, it focuses relatively slowly and has extremely thin DOF.
Im not saying its impossible, just that it would take patience, experience and good technique.
Quite the opposite. However, the fact that 135L has a rather small/low-mass rear focusing group is kinda not the most important thing here. What is most important is that you are talking about the lens which has probably the fastest AF drive of all Canon lenses. Moreover, because of its large nominal aperture, 135L based setups still focus fast even when setups based on lenses like 300 f/2.8 IS begin to stutter, either because of low light or low contrast.
Imagemaster wrote:
Well I guess you should have been a tackle or hockey defenseman, since you obviously would have been able to predict whether they would dodge right or left to get past you. And I am pretty sure the moves made by basketball players are always predictable.
Next you will be saying that a pro athlete can't change course quicker than a child.
I'm not sure why you're making this such a personal discussion.... I'm unsure of your motivation, but I'll answer your question nonetheless.
When photographing a subject at a long range as is often done with sports photography, it doesn't matter if the person is running at full speed, or if they cut quick to the right or left. The camera won't have a hard time tracking the subject, and it is very predictable. The bigger issue is when another subject cuts between you and the camera. Many of the sports targeted cameras have the ability to tell the camera to ignore temporary distractions.
I have football photos and baseball photos where the subject is flying through the air catching a ball, being flipped upside down, or other things along those lines. So long as the subject is far away, it's easy, and from the camera's point of view, they are moving very predictably.
At close range when you have a small child or a small dog that are running around randomly, it's very difficult. This is the type of situation the OP was discussing.
I hope this gives a sense of clarity, but feel free to further discuss my athletic abilities.
arbitrage wrote:
I will start off and say that I am going to assume based on the rest of the conversation that the Thread Title is wrong and we are not talking about AI Focus mode.
That is correct - the thread title is incorrect and I am referring to AI Servo and not AI Focus. I am grateful for the responses and suggestions which I will put into use. I bought the 135L based on many comments about it being very fast at F2 and also very fast to focus on the subject. Being a beginner, I was unaware of the super thin DOF at closer distances and that shooting wide open makes it that much tougher to achieve sharp focus moving subjects. I was thinking of the ability to isolate my subject against a beautifully blurred background. I will try stopping it down for my shoot this weekend and use a mixture of One Shot and Servo and compare the results. Based on the comments in this post, Servo wasnt as much of the problem (as Canon suggested), but my technique - shooting wide open at a moving subject with a F2 lens, wide open....Show more →
Not saying your camera or lens doesn't have a problem, but you don't have to move your AF point much to get an OOF shot with the 135 at f2. Especially in AI servo, if you move the point even slightly off your target while tracking, the camera can focus on something other than what you want.
For fun, I shot a few photos of my son in servo with f/2 lenses.
I held the focus point on his eye.
I was at close range. I had many misses. It's not a camera problem, it's an expectation of the settings problem.
At close range f/2 is shallow. It's difficult for any camera to do well with it, especially in a little bit more challenging lighting (my tests were 1/200 f/2 and iso 1000).
I wasn't put off by the results at all. I know mh cameras (all of them) track properly. I know all of my lenses focus properly. Thus expecting all in focus is unrealistic.
PetKal wrote:
Quite the opposite. However, the fact that 135L has a rather small/low-mass rear focusing group is kinda not the most important thing here. What is most important is that you are talking about the lens which has probably the fastest AF drive of all Canon lenses. Moreover, because of its large nominal aperture, 135L based setups still focus fast even when setups based on lenses like 300 f/2.8 IS begin to stutter, either because of low light or low contrast.
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