Lens focus hunting, lens or camera or both?

Shun,

 

I use single point, center AF + D9.

As I recall, I tied one or two options, and in a mixed group sport (football, basketball, soccer), the AF could not keep track of the main subject, and lost him in the group/mass of players.

Color tracking likely would not work, as the other players on the team are in the same color uniform. But I have not tested it.

 

I will look into the other AF options again.

I would love to find a zone AF that would work reliably for mixed group sports.

 

The trick is what the Nikon AF can do that Canon AF can't do.

The AF on the Canon T5 and T7, when in area/zone mode, use "closest subject" focusing logic. And many/most times, the closest subject in a pix, is NOT the primary subject.

Well, get an f2.8 (or fater) lens first and then try more AF points. Multiple AF points are useless with a lens that has slow AF.

For that kind of photography, manual focusing is not realistic, and you want to pay your full attention to the motion of ball and your composition, not worrying about focusing at the same time.

 

Ha, what composition.

Today's kids that can do 4 things at the same time could probably track the ball and compose the shot, at the same time, not me.

Tracking that kicked ball is hard enough without thinking about composition. 100% concentration on just tracking the ball. The shotgun stance helps a lot, so that I can smoothly and quickly track the ball, without trying to pivot my body around a monopod.

My only composition is accidentally, by having the zoom wide enough to capture enough players and the net.

 

Actually I could and did focus and zoom. But that was in the old days, with a F2, which has a much better screen for manually focusing.

And it had to be with ONE specific lens, the Nikon 80-200 f/4.5. It is the only lens that I used, which had a butter smooth focus/zoom ring, so follow focus/zoom was somewhat easy, with enough/LOTS of practice.

Edited February 10, 2018 by Gary Naka

"closest subject" focusing logic

This is what you get with Nikon's Group AF (not available for the D7200, but for the D7500, D500, D810, D850, and D5).

 

On Nikon's 51-point AF camera bodies I never had good success getting more than the nearest neighbor (D9) AF points involved. 3D Tracking or Auto-area AF did not work for me at all; the first (and so far only) Nikon with which I had some success is the D500 (beach volleyball, not soccer though). Sony seems to be doing better in that regard; the A7II tracked individual beach volleyballers quite well.

Well, get an f2.8 (or faster) lens first and then try more AF points. Multiple AF points are useless with a lens that has slow AF.

 

I have the 35mm f/1.8 that I use for indoor sports (basketball, and soon to be volleyball).

So I will give that a try.

I have always used the AFC-D9 option on cameras with the 51 pt AF engine until recently. This year I am experimenting with the group setting that seems good for basketball with the D810,

 

I remember getting the impression that the AF CPU just could not keep up with action using 51 point modes in D700/D300 era cameras, especially in poor lighting.

My new used 70-200 f/4 lens arrived today :)

I got a good deal on it, as long as the electronics don't fink out on me.

I hope the AF works better than the old 70-210 screwdriver AF.

I will give it a workout at the next Lacrosse game in 2 weeks.

 

BTW, the AF and 35mm f/1.8 worked great for indoor basketball and volleyball. I used D9. The problem with basketball is that the players mix it up so much that it is easy for the AF to latch onto the wrong player. Less so for for volleyball.

 

I put in a recommendation to the yearbook advisor to get a 35mm f/1.8 lens for the Canon, for the indoor sports. That would also keep the T5s usable.

I found the perfect lens.

Unfortunately it is is for a different lens system.

The Olympus 12-100, (24-200 FX equivalent). But it is for the Micro 4/3 system.

There's always the Nikon 10-100mm for the Nikon 1 series.

 

....but it's a bit slow on aperture at 4.5/5.6...:(

 

VR's good for lots of things, but not sport...:(

 

... and you can get a used one for well under $300.....:)

 

Mind you, the Ollie is 'only' constant f4, like your 70-210!!

There's always the Nikon 10-100mm for the Nikon 1 series.

 

....but it's a bit slow on aperture at 4.5/5.6...:(

 

VR's good for lots of things, but not sport...:(

 

... and you can get a used one for well under $300.....:)

 

Mind you, the Ollie is 'only' constant f4, like your 70-210!!

 

I actually had looked at the 10-100 and Nikon 1, but the Nikon 1 series seemed to have hit a dead end. :(

They put the EVF as a funky add-on onto the V3, which to me is just asking to be broken. I want the EVF as part of the body, not a clumsy add-on. I would have to go with the older V2 or V1 to have the EVF as part of the camera.

 

The slow aperture is OK for day games, but NOT for night games under lights.

Under the lights, with the D7200, I am shooting at ISO 12800, f/5.6 at 1/500 sec.

 

Actually VR is good for shooting sports, on the long shots at max zoom. But it also depends on amount and speed of subject movement.

- from outside the outfield fence to home plate

- shoot the outfielders catching a ball

- shooting the defence goal from the offence side of the soccer field.

Your shutter speed may be high enough to handle camera movement, but the VR helps to stabilize to be able to hold the frame.

VR will let you drop a stop slower, because it stabilizes the camera, so you only deal with subject movement.

VR will NOT work for active subjects at slow shutter speeds, because of subject movement.

 

Yes the Olympus 12-100 is f/4, same as my Nikon 70-200 f/4 AF-S VR (which replaced the old 70-210 f/4 AF)

Much as I wanted the f/2.8, I decided that I had to compromise on the weight, as I'm not as young as I used to be.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Gary Naka

I feel obliged to bring up equivalent apertures. An f/4 12-100 on micro 4/3 is, in terms of amount of light hitting the sensor and depth of field, like a 24-200 f/8 on FX. I got on very well with my 28-200 f/3.5-5.6G on a 12MP body, especially at f/8. Not so much at 36MP. I'm not sure I'd be all that sold on the perfection of a 12-100 f/4, but then if I were expanding my micro 4/3 selection (which consists of one old body and two old lenses, plus an F-mount adaptor) it would probably fit the circumstances under which I'd use that system. I'd have to compare such a thing to a compact such as the RX10 series (with a 24-600mm equivalent f/2.4-4 lens on the latest two and a 24-200 f/2.8 constant aperture on the mk2, with a body with a 2.7x crop) - or the cheaper FZ1000.

 

If there was such a thing as a perfect general-purpose lens, we wouldn't need an interchangeable lens mount. Plus any serious contender would look a bit like the Sigma 200-500 f/2.8...

Andrew

Yes I have learned about the increased DoF as you go to smaller sensors. But my usual battle is with light level, not so much DoF. So it is a consideration, just not a primary consideration. Now that I've said that, I will run into this issue.

 

You are correct, even my 18-140 on my DX body sometimes feels too big, and I switch to a smaller lens.

I do NOT need a 140 inside the house the smaller 18-55 is just fine.

I would love a DX equivalent to a 24-200 f/2 that is as small as my 18-70. But physics says not.

 

Technology has given us better lenses, so my GP lens has significantly improved over time.

• For 35mm
  
  • The 50mm lens was my first GP lens, cuz that was my only lens.
     
    
  • The 43-86 was my next GP lens. I really liked this lens. Except at f/3.5 it was SLOW, compared to the 50mm f/1.4 lenses.
     
    
  • The 35-105 replaced the 43-86, cuz it had a wider more usable zoom range.
    

  [*]Then to DX format

  • The 18-70 was my first DX GP lens, and it worked well. I still use this lens, in place of the 18-140, when I want a smaller/lighter lens on the camera.
     
    
  • The 18-140 was my next DX GP lens. I liked the zoom range, but wish it went down to 16mm, to give me a wider coverage. When I first got into photography I could not even dream of an affordable lens with this kind of zoom range. But it is a slow lens.
    
  • The 16-85 f/2.8-4 is a faster lens with better optics than the 18-140. This lens is tempting me, but I may go FX instead.
    

  [*]For future FX

  • I am looking at either the 24-85 or 24-120.
    

Yes I have learned about the increased DoF as you go to smaller sensors. But my usual battle is with light level, not so much DoF. So it is a consideration, just not a primary consideration. Now that I've said that, I will run into this issue.

 

Well, yes. But the reason that bigger sensors have better performance at a given ISO is because they're receiving more light! So the 4/3 body with an f/8-equivalent lens gets as much light on the sensor as a full frame Nikon does at f/8. While ISO is measured per unit area, if you're worried about the amount of noise you're getting in the final image, thinking in terms of equivalent aperture and "equivalent ISO" (with the micro 4/3 system shooting at two stops higher ISO than full frame and just over a stop higher than DX) gives you a good estimator of the image quality, if the technology was equivalent. That is, if you're at ISO 1600 and f/4 on a micro 4/3 system, you might expect a similar image by shooting at f/8 and ISO 6400 from (say) a D5. There's no substitute for a big, heavy bit of glass capturing light as a way to deal with darkness. Well, apart from a flash gun, obviously!

 

My problem with the 24-120 is less to do with its performance (in the f/4 version) than its price and size. Hence I take a small weight hit to have the 24-70 Tamron on my body instead, most of the time. If Nikon had kept the 24-120's size down nearer the 28-200 f/3.5-5.6, I'd be much happier with it. There's a chance mine will get traded when/if I switch to the latest 70-200 (though I have slight hesitation about whether to go with the Tamron for that, too).

I really like my Sigma 50-100mm 1.8 on DX or CX...!

Thanks Andrew, I understand now.

Same reason FX has better low light performance than DX.

 

The old saying, "FAST glass wins," still applies.

Thanks Andrew, I understand now.

Same reason FX has better low light performance than DX.

 

The old saying, "FAST glass wins," still applies.

 

Indeed. Or to put it another way, you'll capture the same amount of light at the same depth of field with the same field of view and the same camera location, no matter what size your sensor is, and if you're going to talk "equivalence" you need to ensure that everything is equivalent if you want to make a fair comparison. (That said, smaller sensors tend to have less noise per pixel and warm up less, larger sensors tend to be better at avoiding well saturation, lens coverage is usually easier to achieve than controlling aberrations at fast apertures, and all is never equal...)

 

If you want the same image with less noise, the only solution is to quote Colin Chapman from Lotus Cars: "add light(ness)". I maintain that photographers will be among the main beneficiaries of a Dyson Sphere, especially if it gives us a temporary brightness control over the sun.

One of the more recent patents from Nikon was for a curved sensor, or more precisely (I think!) a 'spherical zone' sensor.

 

I guess that's gotta make lens design a whole new ball-game?

I've seen several people talk about curved sensors. The thing that's always thrown me about that is: which curve? Fine for a fixed-lens camera, but I don't really see why one curve is substantially better than a flat plane in the general case - you still have to adjust the lens to map what is hopefully a linear plane in the scene onto the sensor curve, whatever that curve is.

I aways kinda thought the spheric nature of lenses made it easier to project onto a spheric sensor.

 

IIRC the Schmidt camera worked that way.

I aways kinda thought the spheric nature of lenses made it easier to project onto a spheric sensor.

 

IIRC the Schmidt camera worked that way.

 

I believe you - but a sphere of what radius? A flat plane is a special case of a sphere of infinite radius, after all. Other than for an explicitly paired lens and sensor (such as for a smartphone) I'm not clear how picking any one radius that's not infinite is significantly better than picking one that is - especially if you're avoiding too much distortion.

 

But I've still to do the reading on optical science that I keep threatening.

I guessed 'radiused' from one of the crucial nodes somewhere....:)

I guessed 'radiused' from one of the crucial nodes somewhere....:)

 

Yes. but is it easier to place an exit node at a specific position for all lenses than it is to make all lenses telecentric? I get it for a single lens, but not in general, especially if there's any intent to adapt existing lenses. Maybe I'm over-thinking it.

Yes I guess so. But I wonder why they patented one?...:)

 

I suppose something like a full-frame Coolpix A would work nicely and could be really thin. Something outlandish like a 28mm f0.75..:p

Mostly I think people have been looking at them for phones, but I've been wrong before about Nikon's direction, so maybe this is the new mirrorless.

 

I did look at a Coolpix A with a view to having something lighter than my D810 with which I could justify posting to Nikon Wednesdays. They're still awfully expensive for what they are, sadly.