EOS 90D Trouble focusing on birds in flight when panning

[Ramsden]

Hi folks

Not long after getting my EOS90D a couple of years ago, I bought a few books to learn how to use my camera properly. One of these was Understanding Exposure, by Bryan Peterson, which influenced me into being an 'M Raw' type of photographer. For those who have read my posts over the last couple of years will recognise that I haven't used many of the many additional features that this camera offers!

Till last week I set up C1 and C2 for the first time, and its been great. And I continue to see what this camera can do.  My C2 settings are geared up for relatively fast multi shot photos. I have tried to take loads of pictures of birds in my small village in Yorkshire. Point and shoot - it works great, apart from highlighting the limitations of my enses! 

This made me wonder if the Panning Setting would be more efficient. So I gave it a try last week.

In my short experiment, I would suggest its not as my C2 settings.

When Panning birds in flight, the camera failed to focus and wouldn't let me take a picture. This was probably 60% of the time. Not a big experiment. BUT I'm curious why the Panning operation was so sluggish, while my C2 was great.

To take this further, and building on my last post, I intend to use some of these features, so I can learn how the camera thinks, and improve my ability to take good pictures. I take a lot of train photos, where the Panning would be useful.

Techie stuff:

My C2 settings:

Aperture priority

F14, IS0 200, AI Servo, Spot AF (for birds), Partial metering and High speed continuous. 70-300 lens

The Panning app  only seems to allow me to change Brightness and the level of background blurr, and sets the camera up accordingly. So am I missing something with the Panning set up?

Not a big deal, but any useful comments will be, as ever, gratefully received.

Ramsden

[Ramsden]

Morning Brian

Thanks for your detailed response. I think you must have been reading my mind. I had come to conclusion that birds in flight are not best suited to panning. I was going to try the Sports setting and see if the camera behaves  differently, but the stormy weather has kept me indoors.

I take your point entirely about panning being a skilled operation, and your attached photographs are excellent. If I’ve got this right, the aim is to get the background blurred as an important part of the photograph, so that’s my goal.

I also realised that my largest lens is a modest 70-300, so is quite limited in terms of extension. So for the time being I will work on my panning camera skills with subjects that go from L - R, or vice versa. I like your method of twisting your body from the point where you will take the photograph, this makes perfect sense.

Regards

Ramsden

[p4pictures]

The sports scene mode, is almost certainly not the one to use. It is designed to select faster shutter speeds to freeze the motion of moving subjects. 

Your 70-300mm lens has a similar field of view as I would achieve with a a 112 - 480mm lens on my full frame camera. As I showed above the distance to the subject is important, not necessarily the lens. My quad bike racer was taken with a 70-200mm lens at 200mm. I was stood on the pavement across the street from the girl riding the bicycle, and 40mm was suitable for the wider view.

[Ramsden · Accepted solution]

Yes, that makes sense.

I feel a bit annoyed that I followed an edict in one of the books I bought a couple of years ago, that encouraged the M Raw - exposure triangle route and suggested that you throw away the manual!. Now I am going to use everything  that the camera has to offer.

Though, understanding the exposure triangle is an ongoing journey for me.

My late father would smile, as I still have his old kit with an exposure meter in the bag.

But I’m much clearer now, and will try out different strategies as my skills develop.

Best 

Ramsden