Out of focus fast moving targets EOS R6 Mark II

[Brocstar]

Hello. I’m a novice photographer. But I’ve been shooting with the R6 Mark II for about a month now. I have the RF 100 x 500 lens from Canon. I was shooting some fast moving birds that were feeding today and a lot of my photos were out of focus.  my lens was set from 100 to infinity. I had auto focus on. And I was shooting high-speed. From a far the photos look great but once you zoom in you can tell there is a lot of noise. I kept my ISO at 100 for most of the shooting as it was very bright out. Is shutter 1/500 too slow with an aperture of 5.6f, ISO 100 not great for high speed. I was hoping to get more tact photos. 

Another couple shots I placed were water shots of big groups of birds, dive bombing bait. I was hoping to get some tack shots of the pelicans and seabirds penetrating the water. But they’re pretty dull and not very sharp.One instance of that my settings were 1/5000. F7.1 and iso 1000, water super sharp birds not. 

Another example is 1/640, f7.1 iso… Water sharp birds not. 

I am fully zoomed at 500mm

I want to make sure I am using the best settings for fast birds feeding and catching food as theses opportunities do not come up very often. 

Seemed like on the solo shots with fish hanging from birds mouths, camera was having hard time focusing.  

Any help helps. 

Thanks 

[Waddizzle · Accepted solution]

“ I will have to check how my settings are set up.  I think I am in servo and I was in Spot or single point at first but it kept jumping off my subject so I moved to Area. I am gonna take a look then get back to you. “

The most likely cause for you losing tracking on a single bird is camera shake. If you only use a single focus point, then you are fully responsible for keeping the single focus point on your subject. 

Refer to a DOF table or app. All the birds would probably be in focus no matter which one you followed.

Cropping an image to a much smaller size can significantly reduce the resolution of the image, making it seem as if the image is out of focus. 

[Tronhard · Accepted solution]

Conventional wisdom suggests that one uses the following rule of thumb for shutter speed to account for hand-holding, being 1/focal length.  However, that is only for camera shake.  Fast-moving birds present their own challenges, so for that one needs to up the shutter speed significantly above that.   I would suggest shooting at something over 1/1000sec, and adjust ISO accordingly.  A bit of potential noise is easily fixed in post, but a fuzzy image from shake or bird movement is a much more difficult issue to sort out afterwards.

I shoot wildlife predominantly, and I personally use Back button focus, with servo, single-point with animal (or human as required) face and eye tracking.  I shoot using the R5, R6 and R6II and they all have fabulous focusing and tracking abilities, but they will not solve the issue of subject movement while the shutter is open. Upping your shutter speed will also reduce the chances of camera shake.

For shooting hand-held, I have always found the following technique to be effective:
Eye tight to the view finder
Hand under the lens, heel of hand under the body and the fingers curled under the lens.  Think of it like holding a rifle, it's the same principle.
Arms with elbows tucked tight to the torso to form a triangular support
Right hand lightly manipulates the controls - no weight bearing and a light touch.

[Brocstar]

Thank you again for the insight and link. I will be watching more of his videos soon. Will update you on my next attempt as I think my auto focus was not set up correct. I also need to increase my shutter a bit as I noticed most my photos are at 1/500.  I can go higher but I will keep you posted. 

Broc 

[Tronhard · Accepted solution]

Conventional wisdom suggests that one uses the following rule of thumb for shutter speed to account for hand-holding, being 1/focal length.  However, that is only for camera shake.  Fast-moving birds present their own challenges, so for that one needs to up the shutter speed significantly above that.   I would suggest shooting at something over 1/1000sec, and adjust ISO accordingly.  A bit of potential noise is easily fixed in post, but a fuzzy image from shake or bird movement is a much more difficult issue to sort out afterwards.

I shoot wildlife predominantly, and I personally use Back button focus, with servo, single-point with animal (or human as required) face and eye tracking.  I shoot using the R5, R6 and R6II and they all have fabulous focusing and tracking abilities, but they will not solve the issue of subject movement while the shutter is open. Upping your shutter speed will also reduce the chances of camera shake.

For shooting hand-held, I have always found the following technique to be effective:
Eye tight to the view finder
Hand under the lens, heel of hand under the body and the fingers curled under the lens.  Think of it like holding a rifle, it's the same principle.
Arms with elbows tucked tight to the torso to form a triangular support
Right hand lightly manipulates the controls - no weight bearing and a light touch.

[Brocstar]

This is great advice. For some reason I missed your messages before. Thanks so much 

[TomRamsey]

The feeding frenzy scene is a very hard scene for anyone or camera to pick out and individual bird since there are so many and many are moving fast.  Terns are notoriously fast and unpredictable, even though sometimes you have a chance when they hover before a dive.  Sorry, I don’t have actual experience with the Camera to give specifics, I’ve just recently got my R6 Mark II which is my first Canon camera, and am trying to learn all of the autofocus settings.  I don’t yet have a long lens (200-800 on order) to try out the settings and technique. I’ve shot diving seabirds with Pentax cameras with some success, the R6 Mark II has a much better autofocus system, so I feel learning technique and settings are very important skills.  No matter how good a camera is, it doesn’t take pictures, the user does.

[March411]

Good luck Broc, it will all come together and you'll be getting great images in no time.

[Tronhard]

Withe birds in flight, or any fast-moving subject, you can't expect to get 100% success rate - they are moving, you are moving the camera to track them, so there are a lot of variables.  That is normal.

When using Back Button focus, for wildlife, you are best to use it in servo mode.  To see how to make this happen, I suggest watching this video from Canon:

I have the same camera and lens myself.  I personally use single point centre focus (note in the video the presenter mentions that in passing) with face and eye tracking on - I do this to be able to lock in the eye (which is everything) and track it.

I have that all set up to the AF-ON button and use the * button to lock exposure, again for precision.  In environments where there is lot of contrast you need to be able to define a spot that has the 18% reflectance that sensors meter to achieve, and you can't assume that the subject has that.  Think, for example, of a black bear or a polar bear: they are black and white respectively, so the camera's metering will be fooled and give the wrong exposure if you are not aware of that.

[Brocstar]

Thank you Tronhard.  This was very helpful.