Cool background and fine bird.
I'm sure there's a Toucan manufacturer with a whole series of painted beaks ready to stick on a willing model just behind that palm tree.
Full disclosure... I've been vocal about the 600GM+A series cameras having trouble with these types of shooting challenges. Yesterday was no different. Still does not engage AF when there is nothing but a bird and background in the frame.
149113 wrote:
I've been vocal about the 600GM+A series cameras having trouble with these types of shooting challenges. Yesterday was no different. Still does not engage AF when there is nothing but a bird and background in the frame.
Compared to DSLRs all mirrorless have issues focusing on a subject that is too far out of focus. Is that what you are referring to?
Compared to DSLRs all mirrorless have issues focusing on a subject that is too far out of focus. Is that what you are referring to?
The current crop of all mirrorless cameras across various brands has the same “issue”. The problem seems to be magnified more so the longer the focal length is used. That’s the only drawback that I can think of at this time of mirrorless cameras compared to DSLRs.
@149113@ Alex, as long the the focusing distance is roughly in the same range, you won’t encounter that problem. I normally either choose something contrasty to focus on that roughly has the same distance as the target or from time to time, I turn the focus ring to see the outline of the target, still blurry but enough for the system to zip to focus immediately. But stickiness of the AF point on target is significantly better using mirrorless cameras than using DSLRs of the same caliber.
TimMunsey wrote:
Cool background and fine bird.
I'm sure there's a Toucan manufacturer with a whole series of painted beaks ready to stick on a willing model just behind that palm tree.
Thank you very much, Tim! Haha, the entire South America is known for its toucan population. A week or so before my departure, the guide told me that he saw 7 toucan species in the Amazon Basin. I was so looking forward to see them but when I was there, there were only 2 species. That was a let down but fortunately, both species did some flaying actions for me. Although they are not small but getting them in flight is not that easy, I understood, especially considering the mostly busy background. I will post them later…
More local:
A matter of life or death for the crayfish… and to a certain degree also for the merganser. Without the help of her buddy that came to her rescue, the inexperienced female merganser could have been seriously injured or even killed by the food that fought back fiercely….
Daran wrote:
Compared to DSLRs all mirrorless have issues focusing on a subject that is too far out of focus. Is that what you are referring to?
To understand this it's better to show examples like this. Small birds 4-6" in cover and quickly moving from branch to branch. Often times blocked by a branch and those aren't the kind of shots I am gonna take anyway. But when they land on a branch and are completely unobstructed and there is more than enough contrast + a nice background, that is green light for me. I expect the system to immediately engage AF. Should not matter if I am in zone, small flex, large flex... something should engage. 95% of the time I am in large flex but have switched to small flex to see if anything changes. But more times than not it doesn't do anything. I am hammering on the back button and nothing is happening. I can see the color from the bird but it's OOF. One of the "fixes" is to trace back from the bird to a branch or the base of the tree and then get focus... that will sometimes work but will fail just as often and even if it does the bird is gone or back behind a branch 30 feet away. Focus limiter is engaged in the middle position because that essentially covers me on anything I shoot in this scenario. Other "fixes" suggested online are to hit turn the focus ring and the camera will "wake up"... I am hand holding and that's not even possible - one hand on the foot and the other on the camera.
The current crop of all mirrorless cameras across various brands has the same “issue”. The problem seems to be magnified more so the longer the focal length is used. That’s the only drawback that I can think of at this time of mirrorless cameras compared to DSLRs.
@149113@ Alex, as long the the focusing distance is roughly in the same range, you won’t encounter that problem. I normally either choose something contrasty to focus on that roughly has the same distance as the target or from time to time, I turn the focus ring to see the outline of the target, still blurry but enough for the system to zip to focus immediately. But stickiness of the AF point on target is significantly better using mirrorless cameras than using DSLRs of the same caliber. ...Show more →
Josh - these birds are rarely in the same plane of focus for long: 2-4 seconds max in most cases. They are flitting in and out constantly and at 840mm you gotta be on your game and quick to their new perch and hope there are no branches in the way. It's why some of these smaller songbirds are tough birds to get high quality shots of. And then you add the fact that a lot of them never come off the top third of tree to get any closer. Someone suggested baiting or perches to get them to fixate on one spot. Without getting into my ethical opposition to that, these aren't really the kind of birds that would even be drawn to that sort of thing.
You'll get no argument on the stickiness of the AF system. Definitely light years ahead of DSLR
149113 wrote:
To understand this it's better to show examples like this. Small birds 4-6" in cover and quickly moving from branch to branch. Often times blocked by a branch and those aren't the kind of shots I am gonna take anyway. But when they land on a branch and are completely unobstructed and there is more than enough contrast + a nice background, that is green light for me. I expect the system to immediately engage AF. Should not matter if I am in zone, small flex, large flex... something should engage. 95% of the time I am in large flex but have switched to small flex to see if anything changes. But more times than not it doesn't do anything. I am hammering on the back button and nothing is happening. I can see the color from the bird but it's OOF. One of the "fixes" is to trace back from the bird to a branch or the base of the tree and then get focus... that will sometimes work but will fail just as often and even if it does the bird is gone or back behind a branch 30 feet away. Focus limiter is engaged in the middle position because that essentially covers me on anything I shoot in this scenario. Other "fixes" suggested online are to hit turn the focus ring and the camera will "wake up"... I am hand holding and that's not even possible - one hand on the foot and the other on the camera....Show more →
Not trying to be a SA but that sounds like would be a great condition for the birds-eye AF feature, which I assume you turn on. In Ecuador and also locally, I am shooting hummers that darted in and out of the AF frame. As soon as one bird enters the AF frame, the AF would focus on a visible eye automatically. I was pleasantly surprised that it would be able to do that even when the magnification of the bird in the viewfinder fairly small. Normally, I use the Zone AF but there were occasions that I felt like cheating and turned the AF mode to Wide. In that case the entire viewfinder acted like the focus frame. But again, as long the lens is focused in the approximate distance and not when it was at infinity when the target is closer to the MFD, for example.
Josh - these birds are rarely in the same plane of focus for long: 2-4 seconds max in most cases. They are flitting in and out constantly and at 840mm you gotta be on your game and quick to their new perch and hope there are no branches in the way. It's why some of these smaller songbirds are tough birds to get high quality shots of. And then you add the fact that a lot of them never come off the top third of tree to get any closer. Someone suggested baiting or perches to get them to fixate on one spot. Without getting into my ethical opposition to that, these aren't really the kind of birds that would even be drawn to that sort of thing.
You'll get no argument on the stickiness of the AF system. Definitely light years ahead of DSLR ...Show more →
Alex, it doesn’t have to be in the same focusing plane. The keyword is “approximate”. If you focus first on the branch just in the approximate distance, I would say that the camera/lens would grab focus as soon as the bird appears. At least, it has been my experience with my setup.
AGeoJO wrote:
Not trying to be a SA but that sounds like would be a great condition for the birds-eye AF feature, which I assume you turn on. In Ecuador and also locally, I am shooting hummers that darted in and out of the AF frame. As soon as one bird enters the AF frame, the AF would focus on a visible eye automatically. I was pleasantly surprised that it would be able to do that even when the magnification of the bird in the viewfinder fairly small. Normally, I use the Zone AF but there were occasions that I felt like cheating and turned the AF mode to Wide. In that case the entire viewfinder acted like the focus frame. But again, as long the lens is focused in the approximate distance and not when it was at infinity when the target is closer to the MFD, for example.
I didn't take it that way. Bird Eye AF is always on and it works assuming the AF kicked in, the bird is clear of obstructions and still long enough for Eye AF to find the eye. C4 is set to Eye AF toggle and I only change it when I see a mammal. I don't photograph humans or haven't since I did some college basketball years ago
In the use case you describe it doesn't sound like the hummers are in dense cover and blocked by branches. That's probably a differentiator here. The birds come into a tree are there maybe a few seconds and gone to another tree... all in dense cover. Then you are waiting... in a few min they return but this time they are blocked by branches... rinse and repeat. You get a few seconds where that bird is clear of obstructions and set against a nice background - that is it. There is nothing consistent about this. For me I would need a MFD to about 30 feet toggle on the lens to be in the range of where I am shooting 90% of the time
Alex, it doesn’t have to be in the same focusing plane. The keyword is “approximate”. If you focus first on the branch just in the approximate distance, I would say that the camera/lens would grab focus as soon as the bird appears. At least, it has been my experience with my setup.
To maximize opportunities you really need to be prepared for anything from MFD out to 30-40 feet. It's fluid shooting and you point the lens where the bird appears and you hope the background is clean but it often isn't and those images get tossed. That's the best way I can describe it. What you seem to be describing is a scenario where they are coming back to the same approx. distance and you could pre-focus to get close but that's not at all how this goes in my experience. This is the kind of photography that makes BIF look like child's play
This macaw was taking a break at the clay pit inside the forest in the Amazon Basin of Ecuador. Macaws, parrots and parakeets congregate here to eat the clay to combat toxins in the fruit they eat…
AGeoJO wrote:
This macaw was taking a break at the clay pit inside the forest in the Amazon Basin of Ecuador. Macaws, parrots and parakeets congregate here to eat the clay to combat toxins in the fruit they eat…
AGeoJO wrote:
Compared to DSLRs all mirrorless have issues focusing on a subject that is too far out of focus. Is that what you are referring to?
This is my biggest frustration with mirrorless, since many of my small subjects are very close to the camera, and 99% of the time the camera will focus on the background before it recognizes the subject, and it's a struggle to re-focus. I don't understand why more camera companies don't follow Panasonic's lead and let you program a button for "near-AF".
molson wrote:
This is my biggest frustration with mirrorless, since many of my small subjects are very close to the camera, and 99% of the time the camera will focus on the background before it recognizes the subject, and it's a struggle to re-focus. I don't understand why more camera companies don't follow Panasonic's lead and let you program a button for "near-AF".
Cliff,
The current crop of mirrorless cameras are not quite there yet compared to their DSLR counterparts. I am not familiar with the Panasonic camera or cameras you referred to. But what if the focus of the lens is near or at the MFD and then your target is far away? In other words, the opposite of what you described? If I anticipate the target to be fairly close and the focusing distance of the lens is close to infinity, I give the focusing ring a quick twist to bring it in the general focusing plane and it will zip right in focus and if the other way around, I do the opposite, So far so good and yes, it is a work-around, in other words but it is not necessary to do all the time. In most cases though most birds I shoot are within the “operational” focusing distance for mirrorless and this work-around step is not necessary. And yes, the Eye-AF helps here. Just a description of my experience here…
AGeoJO wrote:
Cliff,
The current crop of mirrorless cameras are not quite there yet compared to their DSLR counterparts. I am not familiar with the Panasonic camera or cameras you referred to. But what if the focus of the lens is near or at the MFD and then your target is far away? In other words, the opposite of what you described? If I anticipate the target to be fairly close and the focusing distance of the lens is close to infinity, I give the focusing ring a quick twist to bring it in the general focusing plane and it will zip right in focus and if the other way around, I do the opposite, So far so good and yes, it is a work-around, in other words but it is not necessary to do all the time. In most cases though most birds I shoot are within the “operational” focusing distance for mirrorless and this work-around step is not necessary. And yes, the Eye-AF helps here. Just a description of my experience here…...Show more →
I find using the "set" button on the lens handy to tweak that distance setting, but that variable is highly environment dependent . I also keep the lens in full-time DMF just in case..
AGeoJO wrote:
I am not familiar with the Panasonic camera or cameras you referred to. But what if the focus of the lens is near or at the MFD and then your target is far away? In other words, the opposite of what you described?
I have the shutter button set for normal AF (or "far AF" as Panasonic calls it) which moves the focus point farther away as it searches for the subject, and my back AF button is set to near-AF so it searches closer to the camera.
I use the shutter button AF most of the time, but when the subject is too close and the camera can't pick it up, I hit the rear button and it quickly focuses towards MFD until it picks up the subject.
The Panasonic focus acquisition is really fast, and their subject recognition works very well - all they need is to add PDAF to the mix...
