Percentage of sharp pictures using autofocus

[daniel_zdonczyk]

I currently shoot with a 500mm lens <manual > + 1.4Tc and I am getting

about 1 picture per roll that is a keeper. Does anybody know how

much that ratio would improve if I were using an autofocus lens. I

should clarify that the above relates to bird photography.Thanks.

[ron_niebrugge]

Birds in flight?

[bobatkins]

Depends why they aren't keepers.

 

If the subject is static, there isn't a lot

of wind and your shutter speed is 1/60 or faster

and you're using a decent tripod and head, 95% or more

of your shots should be sharp (at least at whatever point

you selected for AF). None of them may be keepers, but

that's another issue.

 

If they're in flight it's really hard to say. Depends on how fast

they are flying, how good you are at keeping them in the AF zone,

what shutter speed you are using. You should do a lot better than

MF though.

[drc]

Yeah, it's like Dan and Bob say, "birds in flight" or "depends on why they are'nt keepers" ? What are you having problems with, how is your technique etc?

[drc]

Sorry Ron, Ron and Bob!

[ShunCheung]

I upgraded from a manual 500mm lens to an AF one about a year and half ago. It is hard to put the improvement in numbers, but if you are shooting moving subjects, AF has a significant advantage. What prompted me to upgrade was that during a trip to Africa, I realized that I had a hard time focusing on a walking cheetah while constantly adjusting my composition at the same time. Now, keep in mind that I am merely talking about a slowly moving subject, not a running cheetah or a flying bird. If you are shooting a flying bird, AF has a huge advantage. However, if you are shooting a stationary subject, as long as you have good eye sight to focus correctly manually, AF won't have much advantage.

 

Essentially, the main advantage of AF is that it focuses much faster than a typical human can. Haven said that, occasionally I hear some people claim that they are well trained and can focus faster than AF. If you happen to be that gifted, MF is probably fine. I certainly am not that gifted, and I suspect that most of us aren't either.

[nature-photography]

Moose Peterson recently posted a nice article about long lens technique on his website, which I found really useful. You can find it at:

http://www.moose395.net/longlens.html

[rob_hadlow1]

Bird photography is tough, the birds are always flying and of course unpridicatable. Depends on your technique on how you photograph them, will depend on how many keepers you get. AF will help, but even then it is tough to track, espeically when you realise how small the birds are in comparison to what your tracking them on ie sky etc.

[bill_shewchuk1]

I shoot alot with a 500mm f4 and tc/1.4 AF, i have found that no matter what image you are trying to grab (birds in flight or stationary) in combination of mooose's holding techniques and using a bean bag (at the body lens meeting point) seems to help with counter-balance and vibration from mirror flop even at moderate shutter speeds ie; 1/30, 1/60 and even 1/125. everything needs to be a correct combination of equipment and film--ie; shooting birds in flight and 500mm f4--tripod -gitzo 410 and wimberely head and using 100 iso the likely hood of a sharp image will happen (of course fast shutter speed) now not using a heavy tripod, not using a reason ISO film,moderate lighting conditions will affect the outcome---manual or autofocus

[knut_sverre_horn]

You typically get the most interesting pictures when a bird makes som move - e.g. displaying, chasing another bird, running to catch a food item, or during take-off and landing... That's when you (sometimes desperately) need autofocus. I spent serious cash on upgrading from a rather good third-party AF lens to a state-of-the-art Nikkor lens with built-in silent wave motor. I've already made some money selling pictures I'd NEVER would have gotten with my old lens. I bet you won't regret upgrading either - as long as you don't have to sell your car to afford it.

[stephen_vaughan2]

I shot with a manual focus 500mm for years. My specialty has been birds in flight. But I can tell you that since I switched to the Canon EF500 with the EOS-3 I have been able to produce ten times the number flight shots as before. I have also greatly increased the number of keepers. I rarely have out of focus images but there may be other problem that cause them to be trashed but focus isn't usually the problem. Once you become compitent at keeping the AF sensor on the birds (which is no easy task) you will see the benifits to the AF system.

[dan_smith]

I will add that with many autofocus photos you see too many 'bullseye' photos. This is because so many focus in the center or have the most sensitive AF sensors in the center of the frame.

The photographers who really work with it, especially with the cameras that allow one to choose AF points can get away from this a bit. But if you frame a flying bird or moving animal in the frame & follow focus while at the same time keeping the composition as you like, or even changing it as the animal moves & flits about, especially when shooting with bigger glass wide open, AF isn't a lot better than manual focus. This is if you are comfortable with your lenses. If you aren't comfortable, especially with a big lens, you most likely won't even be able to find the subject, much less follow it in the frame.

AF can be great, but Canon lenses, with the ability to follow focus while you manually tweak the fine focus to keep the eye sharp while the AF sensor wants to focus on the shoulder or wing tip, seem to be the way to go.

Birds in flight, especially the smaller & erratic flying little ones are a bear no matter what system you use. The bigger the glass the harder it is for AF to try & keep up with them.

If you measure depth of focus in millimeters AF can be nice as long as you keep the area of sharp focus right where it needs to be-in the AF sensor area. Then that may ruin your composition. AF that is sharp but poorly composed isn't much of a gain. It gets harder as you get closer to the subject. Razor sharp neck feathers & soft eyes on a bird don't work.

No matter the system, AF or manual, you will have to work with it until you are very comfortable & fluid, but still fine tune on the fly for good results.

[brad_mills]

With sports I have found the % of sharp photos to be much higher. It does take some skill to learn how to get the best results; but when you understand the technique, the results do go up.

 

You are also able to get different types of shots. Speaking of sports shots, you'll notice that there are a lot more tight shots of action (with shallow DOF) than there were before AF in newspapers and magazines.

 

To the people that say they get better results with MF; I can't believe that they are using small DOF with quickly moving subjects.

[george_rhodes]

For action shots of birds or other animals, there is no way I could consistantly focus as quickly and precisely as my AF camera with fast telephoto optics. While there are occasional subjects that are exceptions to this, of course, for the vast majority of such shots, I concentrate on composition while the camera simply snaps into focus and keeps focus locked. The newest high end cameras with their multiple AF sensors combined with outstanding fuzzy logic are better at this than I am, and I'd bet than any living person.

[douglas_herr]

Most of the answers to date have compared the best of current

autofocus systems to the most common of the old manual-focus types,

the concentric ring. Just as there are many types of autofocus

systems with varying degrees of usability, there have been many types

of MF long lenses. The sliding-tube lenses, like the Novoflex or

Leitz Telyt, are far superior to the concentric ring MF systems. I

cannot imagine using a concentric-ring MF lens for flight shots of

birds; using a sliding-tube lens, I can't imagine wanting AF,

particularly when I consider the compositional constraint

[Mike D]

Nikon seems to have solved the manual vs. autofocus dilemma with their new AFS lenses. I have the Nikkor 500 AFS lens and use the auto focus to get a quick focus and then use the manual focus ring for critical focus of the eyes of the bird if time allows. Being able to auto focus and then manual focus by just slightly moving the focus ring is really an outstanding feature. I believe the Sigma HSM and some Canon lenses also have this feature.

[erick_lamontagne]

The biggest problem I've had using AF is when I couldn't keep up with the bird.If you lose it for too long the AF gets confused and goes for the background (sometimes distant).As mentionned above, a AF lens with manual touch up is probably the way to go. Besides that, AF has increased my percentage of sharp pictures.I think the best way is to learn the bird's patterns, compose prefocus and shoot at the appropriate moment(especially for landings).

[andy.kim]

The focus spot is one area where I sometimes miss my N90s bodies...the wide focusing area is sometimes more useful than a bunch of focusing spots (F5, F100).