Focus issue with action shot

[jcreative]

Hi everyone. We are having an ongoing issue with photographing running dogs. Almost every time, even with high shutter speed and in AI servo mode, the face of the dog is not in focus. We are focusing on the face, but it appears that the camera/lens is not locking on the face because, as you can see from this example, the tail is in focus, and the face isn't - leading me to believe the camera is not tracking the face. Can you also let us know which focus mode we should be in?  

Canon T3i, stock 55-250 lens

Please help 🙂  Thank you

[kvbarkley]

What camera and lens?

[jcreative]

Sorry - t3i and the 55-250 lens that came with it

[kvbarkley]

That rules out micro-focus adjust.

[jrhoffman75]

Are you putting center focus point on face and giving camera about ½ second with shutter depressed halfway to "do the math"?

[cicopo]

Tend to agree with the above technique. AI Servo needs to be tracking for a bit in order to calculate where the AF thinks the target will be by the time the shutter does it's job.

[ScottyP]

Something running towards you is hard for the autofocus to deal with.  T3i also does not have terribly sophisticated autofocus.  Try dogs running perpendicular to you, and practice panning.  Holding the button halfway to let the AI servo autofocus work on it is good too. 

[Waddizzle]

Can't the T3i do back button focus, and lock focus onto a subject until you press the shutter?

[ebiggs1]

"Something running towards you is hard for the autofocus to deal with."

This is the problem.

                               This is the answer.

Put the,  "... center focus point on face and giving camera about ½ second with shutter depressed halfway"

Plus, I would use just the center focus point.  Turn all the others off.