Canon 7D -Al Servo

[david_mcgillivray]

I have just bought my 7D and have a canon 300 f4.0 L. I want to photo my son running in a 100 meter race. What should the settings C?

FN111 setting be? Any other help would be most appreciated

 

Thanks

David

[wayne_woodruff]

<p>Do you have a question about a specific function or all the whole Auto-Focus settings?</p>

[michael.gregory]

<p>Do you want to freeze the action or show the background a little blurred? Consider the spot where you will be posted to make the photo. Will you be at the starting blocks along the length near the finish line? will you have a view of the whole length of the track? A 100 meter race lasts about ten seconds. If you have a 7D with a fast card and are shooting in high speed burst mode you will get around 3 seconds before shooting slows down to a two second wait then two shots then the wait... <br>

Unless you know what you are after it is kind of hard to say how you want to set up the camera. I think that since the 300 is fixed focal length you are going to have to pick the part of the race you want to catch, (about 25 meters worth of track) and probably set shutter speed priority and select a pretty high shutter speed, (around 1/500 sec or possibly faster, then adjust your ISO to give you a fair depth of field, (likely f8 through around f16 depending on the light and the amount of foreground and background you need). You should consider how much panning you will have to do to follow your son or will he run pretty much right at the camera, and decide whether you can keep a particular focus point, or points on him while panning, thus keeping him more or less the center of focus, or will you do better with one of the zone focus options. If you won't have people or objects like poles interceding in your field of view I personally would likely use one of the central point focus modes. But that is how I would make these decisions. You may want an different result. I suggest shooting some earlier races and chimping to get in some practice and figure out what you need to adjust to give you the best chance of getting the shots you like.</p>

[randallfarhy]

<p>This how I would set it:<br />1. Tracking Sensitivity 3/4 to the fast side<br />2. 0: AF Priority/Tracking Priority<br />3. 1. Continuos AF Track priority (change to main focus point if you enable single point expansion in another setting)<br />4. 0. Focus search on<br />5. AF Microadjust: Not applicable to your post.<br />6. A/F Drive area select: check 2nd and 3rd (pertaining to this post) and register.<br />7. 0. Stops at edges (I havn't experimented with this).<br />8. Your preference<br />9. Your preference<br />10. Your preference<br />11. 2. Enable with external (if using external flash)<br />12. 0. Same for both orientations (I use the toggle to quickly select af point orientation when needed)<br />13. 0. disable mirror lock-up-doesn't apply to stated scenario.<br />That said, wrt #6- I'd use the center cluster for your situation, though there are times when center point expansion is preferred. Hope this helps, have fun.</p>

<p>Post edit: Michael makes some valid points worth considering. My preference for using a 300mm in this situation would be head on/ low angle, as it is difficult to pan and capture the action with this lens if you are in close. (requires a lot of practice and the proper distance/angle). Starting blocks, take-off, mid track stride and finish shots- all in a few seconds.</p>

[dcstep]

<p>I like Randall's settings, but Enabling mirror lockup will not interfere with your AI -Servo functions. If you also shoot landscapes or night photography, you'll want to lock the mirror up and not have to fiddle around with the settings menu.</p>

[david_mcgillivray]

Thank you all for your help